A fee agreement for a Washington impaired driving case is usually two to five pages, written in ordinary sentences, and handed across the table at the end of a consultation when the person reading it is tired and frightened. That is the worst possible moment to read carefully, which is exactly why the document deserves a second reading somewhere quieter, with a pen. Almost every dispute that follows, about scope, about money, about who was supposed to file what, is decided by language that was already on the page. The careful reader is not looking for tricks. The reader is looking for boundaries: where the flat fee stops, and what sits on the other side of that line.
Find the sentence that defines the scope
Somewhere near the top there will be a clause naming what the fee buys, and it usually names a stage rather than an outcome: representation through arraignment and pretrial hearings, or through resolution short of trial. Read that phrase literally, because it is meant literally. A fee described as covering the case is not the same as a fee covering the case through verdict, and the difference is often several thousand dollars. Check whether motions practice is included, since suppression hearings on the stop, the arrest, or the breath test are where most of the substantive work in these cases actually happens. If the agreement says pretrial motions are included, note whether it caps the number.
Locate the license hearing, or its absence
The administrative proceeding at the Department of Licensing runs on its own clock, with its own deadline to request a hearing, and it is legally separate from the criminal case in district or municipal court. Some agreements fold that hearing into the flat fee and say so plainly. Others carve it out as a separate engagement with its own price, and a few say nothing at all, which is the version worth asking about directly and getting answered in writing. Ask who files the hearing request, by when, and who pays the state's filing fee. Ask also whether the fee covers a subpoena of the arresting officer, because a hearing without live testimony is a different piece of work than one with it.
Separate fees from costs
Fees pay for the attorney's time. Costs pay for everything else, and the agreement almost always says costs are the client's responsibility, billed as incurred or drawn from a deposit. In an impaired driving case that category has a predictable shape: records from the toxicology lab, discovery copying, an investigator to interview a witness, a court reporter for a deposition, and the fee an independent expert charges to review a breath instrument's maintenance records or a blood chromatogram. Expert witnesses bill for review, for report writing, and separately for testimony, often with a half-day or full-day minimum plus travel. Ask for a range in dollars, ask whether the attorney advances those costs or the client pays the vendor directly, and ask what happens if the expert reviews the data and concludes it does not help.
Find the trigger that converts the case to a trial fee
The clause that most often surprises people is the one setting an additional fee when the case is set for trial, and the useful question is what event triggers it. Sometimes it is the trial setting itself, sometimes the reader's rejection of an offer, sometimes a fixed number of days before the trial date. Ask whether the trial fee is earned in full when triggered even if the case resolves the following week, which happens frequently, since negotiations sharpen once both sides have prepared. Ask whether it covers one trial or a retrial after a hung jury. A specific answer here, written into the document, is worth more than any assurance given aloud.
Read the refund language twice
Washington's rules of professional conduct govern how attorneys hold and earn client money, and a flat fee agreement should say where the money sits and how it becomes the attorney's. Look for the word nonrefundable and read what surrounds it, because a fee may be described as earned upon receipt while the agreement still preserves the client's right to a refund of any unearned portion if the relationship ends early. Ask how the attorney would calculate that portion: hourly reconstruction, or benchmarks tied to stages completed. Ask what happens if the client is arrested again, moves out of state, or wants a different lawyer in month three. National road safety policy, which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration oversees, shapes how these cases are charged and prosecuted, but it says nothing about how the representation is priced. That part is contract, and the contract is readable.
Take the agreement home. A lawyer who will not wait a day for a signature is telling you something useful, and most will wait without being asked, because the questions a careful reader brings back tend to make the working relationship easier for both sides.