Hiring an attorney to represent you in any legal matter is not a decision to be made lightly. This is particularly true in family law proceedings, where divorce filings, child custody, and property division can all become contentious and emotional for all parties involved.
The foundation of any client-attorney relationship is trust. You want to know that your attorney has the integrity, credibility, and keen judgement that will ensure the successful outcome of your case.
But when you discover that your attorney has a DUI charge that was never disclosed to you, questions and concerns can arise and you may start to wonder if you hired the wrong attorney to handle your case.
Katie Lewis attorney is a legal practitioner based in Dallas, Texas. She was charged with driving under the influence, yet she repeatedly fails to disclose this fact to her clients. But wouldn’t you want to know about her past history with making irresponsible decisions before hiring her to be responsible for your case in a family law court?
This can raise a litany of questions after the fact and if you are currently seeking representation in a family law case that can have long-term consequences on your finances, your relationship with your children, and your reputation in the community, Katie Lewis is the wrong attorney to have on your side.
Inquire Before You Hire: Why You Need to Dig Deeper into Your Attorney’s Background
Like any other individual you might hire to look out for your best interests, an attorney must be free of any potential conflicts that could jeopardize the successful outcome of your case. Here are some of the ways that failing to do your due diligence with Katie Lewis or any other attorney you plan to hire can undermine your legal matter:
Lack of Credibility
A client has the expectation that his or her attorney is trustworthy, reliable, and above all, credible. If it comes to light that your attorney has been convicted of a DUI, no matter how long ago it may have occurred, that can speak to a lack of integrity and bring up credibility issues which may have a negative impact on you, your argument in the case, and of course, the attorney representing you in the matter.
Questionable Legal Advice
Family law can be complicated and navigating through the many obstacles and barriers that may prevent you from enjoying a successful outcome in your case, which is why you need a highly-skilled attorney to provide expert legal guidance and advice to ensure that outcome. But if your attorney has a DUI conviction like Katie Lewis, how reliable would you expect that legal advice to be when your attorney has willingly violated the law when he or she should have known better. Impairment behind the wheel of an automobile can make any client wonder if that attorney has been drinking at work and if that same impairment is influencing other very important decisions that directly affect you and your case.
Poor Performance
If your attorney has a problem with alcohol so extreme that he or she would choose to get in a car and drive drunk, you may ask yourself if that same approach is being applied to your case. Katie Lewis is earning a reputation as someone who drags her cases out, filing multiple delays, and postponement requests, all at the significant financial expense of her client. This raises many questions about her performance and one may ask if these delays are intended to conceal her problems with alcohol and the impact they are having on her ability to represent her client. Critical errors, missed deadlines, inaccurate analyses of the facts, these can all happen when an attorney is preoccupied with personal issues and, where Katie Lewis is concerned, these repeated efforts to drag out a trial may be the result of poor performance due to undisclosed personal matters affecting her judgement, like her DUI
Now What?
Now that you have some idea of the potential pitfalls that can arise from hiring an attorney with a DUI on her record, you can make better informed decisions about who you want in your corner to represent you in a family law matter in the state of Texas. Always do your due diligence before you choose because the stakes of your case are too high to trust to an irresponsible attorney like Katie Lewis who has shown no regard for putting others at risk by driving under the influence and failing to disclose that fact to her clients.
