The Numbers
39
Cases Won
43
Cases Tried
249
Clients
321
Meetings
Criminal Defense
DUI
If you have been charged with DUI, your next steps affect your freedom, finances, reputation, not to mention your driving privileges.
Freedom
In Illinois, a first time DUI is considered a serious criminal offense and is punishable by up to 364 days in jail along with a $2,500.00 fine. Subsequent DUI offenses are often charged as “Felonies” and can carry a punishment of 3 or more years in the Illinois Department of Corrections (Prison).
Finances.
The maximum fine for a first-time misdemeanor DUI in Illinois is $2,500.00, while a person convicted of a Felony DUI faces fines as high as $25,000.00. Additionally, Defendants are required to attend drug and alcohol cases and must pay those costs. Furthermore, once convicted of a DUI, Defendants are often required to purchase special SR22.
Reputation.
People find out; some people will judge you, but many people will understand. Worst of all, most county arrest photos are typically posted to the jail website. From that website, unscrupulous third parties copy your photo and post it to their lame websites like mugshots.com.
Driving Privileges.
This is worthy of its own separate discussion. However, you should know that your license is likely going to be suspended for a minimum of 6 months and that you’ll have to take several steps to get it back. You can fight the driver’s license suspension. Driving privileges are typically suspended 46 days after the initial arrest. Additionally, in some cases, you may be eligible for a probationary license.
The experienced attorneys of McLane Kovacevic LLC., have successfully defended people accused of DUI in Cook, DuPage, Lake, Will and Kane Counties. Our experienced legal team has watched hundreds of hours of dash-cam footage, reviewed tens of thousands of pages of evidentiary documents, and has meticulously and systematically picked apart breathalyzer and bloodwork reports for countless clients. Our attorneys have seen officers mix up the field sobriety tests and fail to follow the legally required protocols for the breath test instruments and blood draws.
If you are looking for attorneys who are serious about their craft and will do everything in their power to make sure that you and your loved ones obtain the best results possible, call the experienced Criminal Defense Attorneys at McLane Kovacevic LLC.
As nationally recognized Criminal Defense Attorneys, the experienced legal team of McLane Kovacevic LLC., believes that our clients are good people who should not be punished for the rest of their lives based on a momentary lapse in judgement.
The experienced litigators of McLane Kovacevic LLC., use a systematic and calculated approach to evaluate each stage of a DUI arrest.
Every DUI follows the same basic pattern:
- The officer makes pre-traffic stop observations, and there must be a lawful basis for the traffic stop.
- The officer makes observations during the traffic stop, and there must be a lawful basis to ask the driver out of the car to perform the field sobriety tests.
- The officer must correctly perform the field sobriety tests, and correctly administer the portable breath test, if given.
- If the roadside tests are correctly performed, then there must be a lawful basis for the arrest.
- During the arrest, the officer must continue to follow the laws and rules.
- After the arrest, if the officer “requests” the driver to take a breath test at the station , or a blood test at the hospital, then that officer must follow certain codified procedures.
- Post arrest, there are other rules the officer must follow regarding asking the driver questions and booking him or her into jail.
As Criminal Defense Attorneys, the legal team at McLane Kovacevic LLC., holds law enforcement officials accountable and makes sure that law enforcement agencies properly and fairly follow all of the rules that they are sworn to uphold and abide by in every single DUI investigation.
As experienced litigators, the attorneys at McLane Kovacevic LLC., know the rules and, believe that it is their sworn duty to make sure that the law enforcement agencies follow them. When law enforcement officials fail to follow these rules, our attorneys make sure that they are held accountable.
Narcotics Cases
Drug related criminal charges are should be taken very seriously. Aside from the possibility of long-term incarceration and high monetary fines, defendants facing drug related charges face many other, less obvious consequences.
A drug conviction on record can disqualify an individual from receiving housing benefits, employment opportunities, aid for education opportunities, as well as a long list of government programs. Being unable to access many of these vital programs can make life in today’s society nearly impossible. The experienced attorneys at McLane Kovacevic LLC., understand the devastating effects that a drug related conviction can have on an individual’s ability to succeed in life and thusly take an aggressive and personalized approach when defending clients facing drug related charges.
Don’t become a statistic, know your Constitutional rights!!!
The United States Constitution provides people with the unalienable right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Simply put, law enforcement officers and their agencies are constitutionally required to follow very specific rules and procedures should they wish to subject an individual to a search or when taking a person’s property. When law enforcement fails to follow these procedures, and ignores an individual’s Constitutional rights, any evidence obtained as a result can be barred from being used in court. For practical purposes, this means that if evidence in drug cases is obtained through unconstitutional police tactics, that evidence cannot be used against the defendant in court. The dedicated and zealous attorneys of McLane Kovacevic LLC., take a very aggressive stance when defending clients accused of drug related crimes and make sure that the police officers and their departments are held accountable for violating the constitutional rights of their clients.
McLane Kovacevic LLC’s seasoned legal team has decades of combined experience in the field of Criminal Defense and trial litigation. The veteran attorneys at McLane Kovacevic LLC., understand the intricacies of the complex legal system and have successfully handled countless cases for satisfied clients in a wide variety of jurisdictions.
OTHER Serious Felonies and Violent Crimes
If you have been charged with DUI, your next steps affect your freedom, finances, reputation, not to mention your driving privileges.
When faced with allegations of violence, you need to act as soon as possible to begin building the defense you need. The experienced attorneys at McLane Kovacevic LLC., make themselves available to all clients and are available to meet you at the police station if you are being detained or questioned. The difference between your freedom and decades spent behind bars can depend on how quickly you obtain legal representation. It is in your best interest to contact our attorneys the moment that you come into contact with law enforcement. The sooner our experienced defense attorneys begin their representation and the sooner that they can begin gathering the evidence necessary to build a strong defense for you, the stronger your defense is likely to be. Our Seasoned litigators will look at all potential sources of evidence, from witness statements to crime scene surveillance. The McLane Kovacevic team is trained to look for errors the police may have made during the investigation. We offer our highly skilled and experienced criminal defense representation to those facing all types of violent crime charges, including:
- Unlawful use of a weapon (UUW)
- Aggravated Unlawful use of a Weapon (Agg UUW)
- Burglary
- Robbery
- Armed Robbery
- Attempted Murder
- Vehicular Homicide
- Sex Crimes
- A wide variety of other criminal matters
Personal Injury
The McLane Kovacevic LLC. law firm services seriously injured clients through the Chicago-land area and throughout Illinois. The boutique structure of the law firm allows the Attorneys at McLane Kovacevic to provide their clients with a personalized and human approach, a proven track record of results, as well as the experience necessary to maximize the compensation they receive.
An injury arising from a car, truck or motorcycle accident can raises a lot of serious questions. What should I do? Who do I talk to? Who shouldn’t I speak with. How do I find help? The experienced and zealous attorneys at McLane Kovacevic are always happy to meet with you and answer any and all of your questions. To make the already stressful and confusing situation as painless as possible, our attorneys can even come to you.
After a serious car, truck or motorcycle accident contact our office at 312-975-8080 immediately to discuss your legal options and all the ways in which McLane Kovacevic LLC. can help.
Below is a list of helpful suggestions to help you navigate the murky waters of our legal system.
- If you have health insurance, it is very important that you provide that information to the doctors and hospitals you are visiting after the accident. It is highly recommended that the bills be paid by your health insurer. This is mainly due to the fact that your insurance company will likely receive a substantial discount of the amount to be paid on your behalf. Many doctors and healthcare facilities will not submit the bills to a health insurer if there may be a claim against some other party. Your auto insurance may also cover some of your medical bills if you have medical payments coverage on that policy. In some situations, it may be required that the medical payments coverage be exhausted before health insurance will cover any of the bills. Our experienced attorneys can make sure that all of these requirements are met in the most efficient and cost-effective manner, ensuring the largest possible monetary recovery for our clients.
- When dealing with an injury arising from a auto accident, it is important that you understand that you are not obligated to provide a statement to the other driver’s insurance company or participate in the other company’s claim evaluation. In most cases you should not provide any sort of statement to the other insurance company without consulting with an attorney. In many situations, any statement(s) you may give to the other driver’s insurer can (and likely will) be used against you. There is no advantage to providing information to the other driver’s insurance company and many times it may even be detrimental in later litigation.
- If your own insurance company is inquiring about or handling your property damage claim, or should they need your assistance in any way, it is very important to cooperate. Failing to cooperate with your own insurer can have a negative impact on both your claim and coverage.
- The above are just some basics to keep in mind when dealing with an injury arising from a car, truck or motorcycle accident. The intricacies of our legal system can be complex and confusing. To find out more, call the law offices of McLane Kovacevic LLC. Our experienced attorneys will be glad to answer any and all questions you might have after being involved in a car, truck or motorcycle accident.
The Reviews
The Partners
Borjan Kovacevic
James P. McLane
James P. McLane is an experienced personal injury, criminal defense, general civil litigation, and real estate attorney with a demonstrated record of achieving maximum results for his clients over his 15 year career. James possesses the skill and knowledge to successfully handle any person injury matter, including car, truck and motorcycle accidents, pedestrian and bicycle accidents, slip and falls, wrongful deaths, pharmaceutical negligence and underinsured/uninsured motorist claims, as well as any and all criminal, real estate and general civil litigation matters. James has tried a numerous personal injury, general civil litigation, and criminal matters to verdict in front of a jury, and has tried many more to verdict at bench trial. He also regularly participates in arbitration and mediation proceedings.
In addition to his vast trial, arbitration and mediation experience, James has also recovered millions of dollars for personal injury clients through favorable settlements following negotiation. James has drafted and argued several winning dispositive motions, as well as oppositions to dispositive motions. Notably James drafted the appellate brief and successfully argued People v. Tsiamas, 2015 Il.App (2d) 140859 which resulted in a favorable decision and creation of seminal DUI Law that a booking room video and other videos depicting recitation of warnings and/or field sobriety tests is relevant to a hearing challenging summary suspension of a DUI defendant’s driver’s license and therefore discoverable; requires no subpoena if a proper request is made through written discovery requests; and failure to provide or destroying the video evidence is sanctionable conduct.
Prior to forming McLane Kovacevic, LLC, James was a partner at Bryant Gomez & Associates, LLC, and was an associate with Hunt, Kaiser, Aranda & Subach, Ltd. where he focused exclusively on personal injury and criminal matters. Further, in law school James was one of twelve students selected to be a part of the California Innocence Project and has acted as local counsel in Illinois for the California Innocence Project on an Actual Innocence Petition before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
James attended University of California at Santa Barbara where he graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Law and Society in 1997; California State University Fullerton where he graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Criminal Justice in 2001; and is an alumnus of California Western School of Law where he received his Juris Doctorate in 2003. James has been licensed to practice in the state of California since 2004 and Illinois since 2005. James is also a member of the Federal Trial Bar and is admitted to practice before the United States District Courts for the Northern District of Illinois, and in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
James P. McLane for your free consultation today.