One thing that can help tip that balance is if the attorney can handle the case without you appearing in court. Depending on where you’re located, it could make a lot of sense to hire an attorney to appear without you to save the time and expense of traveling to court yourself. The next question is whether or not you think you can appear in front of the judge and ask for what you want. Some people simply go in and plead guilty to a speeding ticket hoping the judge will see their driving record and give them a break. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. Many judges will probably just find you guilty of the speeding ticket. If you think that you’d want to handle the case without a lawyer, you really need to be confident and ask the judge for the right thing. A local, experienced, traffic lawyer will know what kind of things the normal judge is willing to do and what they’re not willing to do. For example, around the Fredericksburg area, most of the judges will not reduce charges to defective equipment as they might do in North Carolina. Going in and asking for defective equipment might simply get a “no” from the judge. The better thing to do in some courts is to ask the judge to send you to driving school. However, some judges won’t send you to driving school based on the type of driver’s license you have and the history on your driving record. That’s another reason for having a lawyer can really help you.