All too often, the motorist (or vehicle owner) waits until a day or two before the summons appearance date to contact an attorney.
In order to have an attorney carefully evaluate your case, and be available to appear, you should try to adjourn the case on your own and then call an attorney so that the case can be discussed (and possibly acted upon) without the pressure of time.
For example, you may need to purchase a tax sticker, have the vehicle inspected, or apply lettering with a DOT number to the side of a vehicle which takes some time to accomplish. Generally you want to show correction to a violation in Court as the Court does not like uncorrected problems on the road showing a disregard for the ticket that was issued.
By obtaining sufficient time until the next Court appearance, you will save the cost of the appearance fee by an attorney to obtain an adjournment. If for some reason you cannot appear in person in advance of the Court date by visiting the Criminal Court Clerkís office, try to get a trusted employee from the Corporation to appear on the Court date on the summons and have them obtain a new date.
If you have absolutely no one to do this for you, call Empire Process Service at 718-449-5300 and see if they can be of assistance.
If all else fails, you may have to pay for an attorney to obtain an adjournment in order to “get your papers in order.”