Attorney William Young has tried DUI cases to Shelby County juries and won. NHTSA certified, same as the officer.
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Tell us your court date, who stopped you, how the stop started, and which tests they gave you. Attorney William Young calls you back himself. He has tried DUI cases to Shelby County juries and won them, and he is NHTSA certified in standardized field sobriety testing, the same certification held by the officer who tested you. That is how he knows when a test was administered wrong.
A DUI in General Sessions is $5,000. A DUI cannot be expunged, ever, which is why the decision you make in the first week matters more than any decision that comes after it.
Your court date is in. Somebody will call you, and bring the citation and any paperwork they gave you to that conversation. If you need us sooner, call (901) 578-1515.
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When did you last try a DUI to a jury and win?
Most DUI cases resolve on a plea. Plenty of attorneys who advertise DUI defense have never put one in front of a jury, and the ones who have not are not eager to start with yours.
It matters even when a case never reaches trial, because the offer you get depends on whether the other side believes you will take it there.
The Stakes
A DUI is not a traffic ticket. It is a criminal charge that carries a mandatory period of confinement, permanently marks your record, and cannot be expunged, ever.
Every other misdemeanor in Tennessee has some path to relief. This one does not. It follows you onto every employment application, every background check, and every professional license renewal for the rest of your life.
What It Costs
Most firms will not put a number on a website. That is ours for a DUI in General Sessions.
A second offense, a case that moves up to Criminal Court, a case that goes to trial, or a DUI involving a commercial license is quoted separately, because the work is not the same.
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Before You Shop on Price
There is always somebody cheaper. Memphis has attorneys who will take a DUI for a fraction of this, and some of them are good lawyers.
Here is what the fee buys.
Not somebody who read about field sobriety tests. Attorney William Young completed the same NHTSA course the officer completed, has administered the tests, and has taken them himself.
In Shelby County. Ask around and find out how many attorneys advertising DUI defense in this state can say that. The number is smaller than the advertising suggests.
That is the part you cannot buy cheap. The offer you get is priced on whether the prosecutor believes this case is going to trial. An attorney who has never tried one is not a credible threat, and the offer reflects that.
What cheap frequently buys is a court appearance, a plea, and a conviction that can never be expunged. That is not a bargain. It is the same permanent record at a discount.
The Part Nobody Explains
Every DUI client eventually asks some version of the same question. Why is this worse than an assault? Why is the jail time mandatory? Why will nobody just work this out?
The answer is that DUI enforcement is funded differently from the rest of criminal law, and it is worth understanding what you are up against.
The Tennessee Highway Safety Office administers federal alcohol enforcement grants that pay police departments for overtime and equipment specifically to run saturation patrols and sobriety checkpoints. Grant funds have to be spent on active enforcement. Officers working under those grants are required to be certified in field sobriety testing, or to get certified within three months.
Tennessee funds two full-time Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutors through that same highway safety money. Their job is training prosecutors and police on impaired driving cases. By their own count, in 2023 they trained 318 prosecutors and 2,988 law enforcement officers.
That includes seminars for Highway Patrol recruits on how to testify, with mock direct and cross examination built into the course. The officer who arrested you may have been taught how to handle a defense attorney by a prosecutor.
MADD is a national lobbying organization and has driven nearly every increase in DUI penalties since 1980. Tennessee’s traffic safety prosecutors list MADD among the organizations they work with, alongside the Highway Safety Office and the Impaired Driving Advisory Council. No legislator loses an election for voting to make DUI penalties harsher, and none of them gain anything by voting the other way.
Sources: Tennessee Highway Safety Office grant program materials and the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutors. Both are linked above.
The Evidence
The three standardized field sobriety tests are horizontal gaze nystagmus, the walk and turn, and the one leg stand. NHTSA publishes accuracy figures for all three, and every one of those figures carries the same condition attached: when administered correctly.
The manual is specific. On the HGN the stimulus has to be held at a set distance, moved at a set speed, and held at maximum deviation for a set number of seconds. Miss any of it and the result is not reliable, because the result was never measuring what it claims to measure.
Attorney William Young holds the same NHTSA certification the officer holds. He has sat through the course and administered the tests. That is not a marketing credential. It is how he knows what a proper administration looks like, and how often what happened on the roadside was not one.
NHTSA rates the walk and turn the least accurate of the three at 79 percent. That number assumes the test was given exactly as written. In the field it is given on the shoulder of a road, at night, on uneven pavement, in whatever shoes you happened to be wearing, by someone who has just been pulled over by police and is frightened.
Not as a stunt. Attorney William Young is certified to administer these tests, so the firm ran them the way the manual says to run them, on attorneys who had not had a drink.
Not all of them, not every time, but enough to make the point. The walk and turn scores you on stepping off a line, starting too soon, using your arms for balance, and taking the wrong number of steps. Stand on a slope at night, in dress shoes, while somebody with a badge watches and counts, and those things happen to sober people.
That is the answer to the question a jury is actually asking, which is whether a person who failed this test was drunk or just a person taking this test. We can tell them from experience, and so can Will, because he has administered it and taken it.
These tests are pass or fail based on clues. Six on the HGN, eight on the walk and turn, four on the one leg stand. There is no machine and no recording of the result. The number of clues is whatever the officer says he observed, written down after the fact, which is exactly the kind of evidence that gets tested on cross examination.
The Second Offense
Tennessee requires a minimum of 45 days in jail on a second offense. No suspended sentence, no probation substitute. Your license is revoked for two years, the fines increase, and ignition interlock requirements attach.
The likelihood of the case moving from General Sessions up to Criminal Court, where it is tried before a jury, goes up considerably. If you are facing a second DUI, the approach is different from the start and the fee reflects that.
Commercial Drivers
If you hold a commercial driver’s license, a DUI conviction does not just affect your personal driving privileges. It puts your livelihood at risk.
The .08 threshold does not apply to commercial drivers operating a commercial vehicle. The limit is .04. And a DUI conviction in your personal vehicle still triggers commercial consequences under federal law.
Your Attorney
William Young · Of Counsel · DUI Defense
Attorney William Young has practiced in Memphis since 2012, handling DUI and criminal defense across Shelby County and West Tennessee. He is NHTSA certified, meaning he has completed the same formal training police officers receive to administer field sobriety tests.
He has tried DUI cases to juries in Shelby County and won. He has also taken the field sobriety tests himself, completely sober, which is a useful thing for a jury to hear about.
Memphis criminal defense → · CDL tickets → · About William Young →
Common Questions
Yes. Every DUI case gets reviewed individually with your input, and then a course of action gets chosen. Sometimes that is a negotiated resolution and sometimes it is a hearing or a trial. What does not happen is a guilty plea entered because it was the easy thing to do.
At this firm a DUI in General Sessions is $5,000. A second offense, a case that moves up to Criminal Court, a case that goes to trial, or a DUI involving a commercial license is quoted separately, because the work is not the same.
Yes, in Shelby County, and won. That is worth asking any attorney you are considering, because most DUI cases resolve on a plea and plenty of attorneys who advertise DUI defense have never put one in front of a jury.
No. A DUI conviction in Tennessee cannot be expunged, ever. It becomes a permanent part of your criminal record and shows up on employer background checks for the rest of your life.
For a first offense you may face community service, alcohol safety school, a fine, court costs, license revocation, and jail time. Tennessee requires a minimum period of confinement on a first offense. The conviction itself is permanent and cannot be expunged.
A second DUI carries a mandatory minimum of 45 days in jail. That cannot be suspended or replaced with probation. The license revocation is two years, the fines are higher, and the likelihood of the case moving from General Sessions to Criminal Court, where it is tried before a jury, goes up considerably.
Because DUI enforcement is funded differently from the rest of criminal law. Federal highway safety money pays for the patrols, the checkpoints, the officer overtime, and the training. Tennessee funds two full-time Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutors whose job is training prosecutors and police on impaired driving cases. No other misdemeanor has that machinery behind it.
Frequently the same program that trains the prosecutor. Tennessee's Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutors train both, including seminars for Highway Patrol recruits on how to testify, with mock direct and cross examination. In 2023 they trained 318 prosecutors and 2,988 law enforcement officers.
NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is the federal agency behind the standardized field sobriety tests and much of the funding for DUI enforcement. It writes the manual the officer is supposed to follow. Attorney William Young holds the same certification, which is how he knows when the manual was not followed.
Three tests: horizontal gaze nystagmus, the walk and turn, and the one leg stand. Every accuracy figure NHTSA publishes for them carries the same qualifier, which is that the test must be performed correctly. That qualifier is where most DUI cases live.
HGN, horizontal gaze nystagmus, looks for involuntary jerking of the eye as it tracks an object. It is the test NHTSA rates highest, and it is also the one most dependent on precise administration. The stimulus has to be held at a specific distance, moved at a specific speed, and held at maximum deviation for a specific time. Officers rarely do all of it correctly.
NHTSA rates it the least accurate of the three at 79 percent, and that figure assumes the test was administered exactly as written. Attorneys at this firm have taken these tests themselves, administered correctly, completely sober, and failed. If a test can be failed sober, failing it does not prove much.
Standing on one foot with the other raised six inches, counting out loud until told to stop. Scored on swaying, hopping, using arms for balance, and putting the foot down. Weight, age, injury, and footwear all affect it, and none of that is scored.
Prescribed indicators the officer is trained to count. The HGN has six possible clues, three per eye. The walk and turn has eight and the one leg stand has four. The tests are pass or fail based on how many clues the officer says he observed, which means the score is the officer's own account of what he saw.
BAC, blood alcohol content, is the ratio of alcohol in your blood, measured by breath test at the station or by a blood draw. The legal threshold is .08 for most drivers and .04 for commercial drivers operating a commercial vehicle.
No. Tennessee law covers impairment by any intoxicant, including prescription medication taken exactly as prescribed. For alcohol there is an objective number. For drugs there is no equivalent threshold, so impairment is evaluated by the officer and supported by chemical testing.
Any traffic violation, including minor equipment problems like a broken headlamp, a missing plate, or no seatbelt. Sobriety checkpoints are another basis, though checkpoints have legal requirements and some are deficient enough to challenge.
Usually. Unless you plead guilty outright you will typically appear at least twice before receiving an offer, and more if the case goes to a hearing or a trial. In most cases we can appear on your behalf for routine settings.
They should not, but if any officer or investigator asks you about the DUI or anything related to it, say that you want your lawyer and stop talking. That request has to be honored.
An unlawful stop, improperly administered field sobriety tests, problems with the breath or blood testing, an unlawful arrest, and insufficient evidence of impairment. Which ones apply depends entirely on the facts, which is why the case has to be reviewed before anyone can tell you what it is worth.
Send your court date, who stopped you, whether it was a traffic stop or a DUI checkpoint, and which tests they gave you, using the form at the top of this page. Attorney William Young calls you back himself. He has tried DUI cases to Shelby County juries and won them, and he is NHTSA certified in standardized field sobriety testing, the same certification held by the officer who tested you. A DUI in General Sessions is $5,000. You can also call (901) 578-1515 instead.
Free consultation. Call before your first court date, not after.