My son has been in jail since april for his 3rd dwi..the other 2 dwi were in 1992&94..he also is on parole for drug case.

Your son should have a bond/bail amount set? Consider throwing money at that before giving any more to the attorney. Your son, if out, can earn to contribute financially to his defense and also can do certain things to mitigate the consequences if found guilty, i.e attend AA, seek treatment, etc. Just a suggestion. Also, if you are not satisfied with the quality of the representation your son is receiving, you can look elsewhere. You can hire other attorneys. But, I suggest scheduling an appointment with your current attorney before doing this to lay out your concerns and possibly resolve them. Good luck!

The attorney actually does not have to communicate with you at all. He is not your attorney, he is your son's attorney. Obviously, the attorney does need to be communicating with your son. There is no requirement that he meet with any certain number of times in jail. Felonies in Dallas are slow to proceed. On a DWI 3rd, they would have taken blood. The blood results can take a few months to come back from the lab. The case will not be presented to the grand jury for indictment until the labs come back. During this waiting period of several months, there's nothing his attorney can do for him. I'm assuming he has a blue warrant on the parole violation, which means there's nothing the attorney can do to get him out while all of this is pending. It sounds like the DA has offered 6 years. It would be highly unusual for a DA to offer probation to him in this situation, with him being on parole. He's probably either going to have to go to trial or do an open plea to the judge to try to get probation. If the attorney is not returning your phone calls, you can either set up in-person appointments with him or hire another attorney.

Tell all your friends to be careful who they hire as an attorney. Unfortunately, Dallas has few options for rehab of felony DWI and drug, so there is only so much any attorney can do for you. There are options and you need to be sure that your son is talking to his attorney about those options, but you must remember that you are not the client and, although you paid, the attorney only answers to his client. My guess is that the problem is the Drug parole and the attorney is trying to keep him out of prison on that conviction. You must back off. You and/or your son selected the attorney and unless you are prepared to hire another and start over, you might as well cool it.

You may not like this answer but here it goes. 1. The attorney is not allowed to discuss the case with you unless your son has consented to such communications. I require it in writing. 2. Most attorneys do not conduct jail visits unless they have some new information for their client. When they receive a new offer from the prosecutor, they are ethically bound to notify the client ASAP unless they know from previous conversations with the client that the offer will be rejected. I still notify the client of all offers and make jail visits about every 4-6 weeks just to let the client know I have not forgotten about them even if I do not have anything new. I suspect with with 2 DWI priors in the 90s and the offer is 6 years, there may be more to this case, such as prior convictions for other offenses. It is you son's responsibility to terminate the relationship with the attorney. You may have paid, the bill and think you are entitled to information, but your son is the client. Your son will be entitled to any unearned amount of the fee that you paid the attorney should your son terminate his services. If your son is truely unhappy with the attorney, I would suggest retaining another attorney to represent him or terminate this attorney and seek a court appointed attorney. Yet this attorney may have everything under control and has done his job perfectly, and under the circumstances, 6 years is a good offer. Without more, this is the best I can do for you.