Practical Advice: Practical Aspects of Handling Vehicle and Traffic Matters

Significant consequences can be imposed on your clients as a result of motor vehicle violations, including drivers' license suspension and imprisonment. It is important that attorneys have a basic understanding of court procedures and the types of issues that can arise in these cases. In this Practical Advice seminar, practitioners will learn strategies to navigate traffic cases to produce the best results for their clients. The presenters will discuss the process of representing a client in traffic cases from the initial contact with the client through plea or litigation.

Topics covered will include:

• Initial Contact with Clients: managing client expectation, representation agreements
• Case Evaluation: document acquisition, discovery, legal research, issue spotting
• Trial Preparation: have a plan, cross-examination of commonwealth witnesses, direct of defense witnesses
• Plea Negotiations: professionalism, discretion, patience, client goals, big picture, collateral consequences, mitigation
• Trial: rules of evidence, objections, scripts, checklists, goals
• Sentencing: client goals, mitigation, collateral consequences
• Overview of Common General District Court Offenses
• Trial Strategies and Possible Defenses
• Creative Sentencing Ideas
  

COVID-19 POLICY FOR LIVE-ON-SITE ATTENDANCE

By attending a live-on-site Virginia CLE^® seminar, you acknowledge the health risks associated with COVID-19 and that you MUST follow all Virginia CLE^® COVID-19 policies. You may NOT attend a live-on-site program if you have tested positive for COVID-19, if you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, or if you are under any self-quarantine orders per CDC guidelines.

Click here for details about the Virginia CLE^® COVID-19 policy. Please revisit the webpage routinely for updates as we are monitoring the evolving COVID-19 situation. All updates to this policy will be emailed to registrants.
(Last updated March 2, 2022)

Cancellation Policy: Cancellation/transfer requests will be honored until 5:00 p.m. the day preceding the seminar. You will, however, be charged $40 if you cancel or transfer your registration to a different seminar after the link to the materials has been e-mailed by Virginia CLE.

Full refunds or transfers are available up to two days after a webcast in the unlikely event that you experience technical difficulties.

Inclement Weather Policy and Updates.

COURSE SCHEDULE (January 18) (Eastern Time)

• Sign-in for live seminar attendees in Charlottesville begins at 10:30 a.m.
• Q&A will be handled via chat room for Webcast attendees.
• Q&A will be handled via e-mail for telephone seminar attendees.

COURSE SCHEDULE (February 17 and March 7) (Eastern Time)

• Q&A will be handled via chat room for Webcast attendees.
• Q&A will be handled via e-mail for telephone seminar attendees.

FACULTY

Hon. Abigail Miller, Prince William County General District Court / Manassas
Kevin L. Leahy, Prince William Commonwealth's Attorney’s Office / Manassas
T. Kevin Wilson, The Wilson Law Firm / Manassas

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Hon. Abigail Miller, Prince William County General District Court / Manassas

Judge Miller was sworn in on June 30, 2022 and began sitting in Prince William General District Court on July 1, 2022. In 2021, Judge Miller was appointed a Substitute Judge by Chief Judge Kimberly Irving of the Prince William County Circuit Court. She attended George Mason University where she graduated in 2001 with a Batchelor of Arts in Government and International Politics, with highest distinction. In 2004, she graduated from George Mason School of Law and was admitted to the Virginia State Bar the same year. Judge Miller began her legal career practicing corporate and civil litigation law in Washington, D.C. and in Fairfax, VA. She would later accept a position with the Virginia Attorney General’s Office representing the Division of Child Support Enforcement in 2006. Later she joined the Manassas law firm of Stephens, Boatwright, et. al.; and in 2015, Judge Miller opened her own practice, Abigail Miller & Associates, PLLC. where she remained until June of 2022.

Kevin L. Leahy, Prince William Commonwealth's Attorney’s Office / Manassas
Kevin Leahy currently serves as the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Prince William County Commonwealth Attorney’s Office. He received his B.S. in General Business Studies from the University of Central Florida in 2002 and his J.D. from the Washington College of Law, American University in 2005. After graduating from WCL, he began working as an Assistant Commonwealth Attorney for Fauquier County. From 2007-2021, he practiced as a criminal defense attorney and joined the Prince William County Commonwealth Attorney’s Office in 2021 as a Senior Assistant focused on Special Investigations.

T. Kevin Wilson, The Wilson Law Firm / Manassas
T. Kevin Wilson earned his B.A. from the University of Kentucky, and his J.D., with honors, from the Syracuse University College of Law. He settled in Virginia and has been practicing law for more than 27 years. He is a Member of the National College for DUI Defense and a Founding Member of the DUI Defense Lawyers Association—national organizations dedicated to raising the quality of DUI/DWI defense by educating lawyers about the many complex issues that arise in DUI/DWI cases.

Mr. Wilson co-authored a book entitled The Guilt Myth, which discusses DUI/DWI in Virginia. He not only has completed the NHTSA DWI Detection and Standardized Field Sobriety Testing (SFST) course, but he is an Instructor, and he has taught Standardized Field Sobriety Testing to lawyers from coast to coast. Mr. Wilson is trained as an Operator of five different breath-alcohol testing machines. He also owns several breath-alcohol testing machines, including an Intoxilyzer 5000 and an Intoximeter ECIR. In addition to his extensive study of field sobriety testing and breath alcohol testing, he has also studied blood-alcohol testing performed both in a hospital setting and in a forensic lab setting. Mr. Wilson has studied both gas and liquid chromatography in a working forensic lab, and he holds certificates in Forensic Chromatography, Forensic Analysis of Solid Drugs, and Forensic Principles of DUID. He is one of only two lawyers in Virginia to have earned the prestigious designation of Forensic Lawyer-Scientist, as recognized by the American Chemical Society Division of Chemistry and the Law.

As a police academy Legal Instructor, for more than a decade Mr. Wilson taught Virginia Criminal Law, Virginia Criminal Procedure, Virginia Rules of Evidence, and Constitutional Law. As a contract attorney, he teaches Virginia firearms law, including topics such as prohibited possessors, prohibited places, open and concealed carry, brandishing, use of force, self-defense, defense of others, and defense of property.