Lee County Criminal Defense Lawyer

Most of the firm’s Lee County clients do not live in Lee County. They live in Austin, in Houston, or somewhere along the stretch of U.S. Highway 290 that runs between the two — and they were unfortunate enough to get pulled over in Giddings on what should have been a routine traffic stop.

The Law Office of David D. White, PLLC has practiced criminal defense exclusively since 2004 across Travis, Williamson, Hays, Caldwell, Lee, Coryell, Bell, Burnet, Milam, and Bastrop County courts. Three attorneys work each case as a team through weekly case reviews and shared Clio notes. By the time you walk into your first consultation, the firm has obtained your Probable Cause Affidavit, read it, and identified the points where the State’s evidence is weakest.

Highway 290 stops in Giddings: what’s actually happening

If you were arrested in Lee County, the odds are very good that the contact began as a minor traffic violation — speed, lane discipline, a brake light — somewhere along the 290 corridor in or near Giddings.

The pattern the firm sees over and over: local law enforcement is more interested in searching your vehicle than in issuing a citation. The traffic stop is the entry point. The actual goal is to develop reasonable suspicion to extend the detention, get a K-9 unit on scene, get consent or a probable-cause search, and find something. When officers cut corners — when the stop runs longer than the traffic violation justifies, when the search lacks probable cause, when consent was coerced — the Fourth Amendment is the answer.

We are trained to look at these stops in detail. The dash-cam, the body-cam, the radio traffic, the field reports, the K-9 alert documentation. We file motions to suppress when the stop, the detention, or the search exceeded what the Constitution allowed. When the evidence is suppressed, the State’s case usually collapses — and the case is dismissed.

The firm has obtained dismissals on Lee County 290-corridor cases through motions to suppress. Every case is fact-specific. But the foundation is the same in each one: the State has to prove that everything law enforcement did was legal. If they did not, the evidence is out.

Where Lee County cases are heard

Felony cases in Lee County are heard in the 21st and 335th Judicial District Courts. These two courts cover Lee, Bastrop, Washington, and Burleson counties — judges and prosecutors rotate among the courthouses, including the Lee County Courthouse at 200 South Main Street in Giddings. Misdemeanors — Class A and Class B — are heard in the constitutional County Court before the Lee County Judge. Class C misdemeanors and traffic citations are handled by the Justice of the Peace courts in Lee County’s three precincts.

Martin Placke is the District Attorney for Lee County and has served in that role for over a decade. The County Attorney’s Office handles the misdemeanor docket. Both offices are based at the Giddings courthouse complex.

Giddings sits roughly 50 miles east of downtown Austin and about 100 miles west of Houston, both on Highway 290.

Charges we defend in Lee County

The firm handles the full range of state criminal charges in Lee County, including:

• DWI — first offense, second offense, felony DWI, ALR license suspension hearings
• Drug charges — possession across all penalty groups, possession with intent to deliver
• Assault — simple assault, aggravated assault, family violence assault
• Theft, burglary, robbery — misdemeanor through first-degree felony
• Domestic violence and family violence
• Sex crimes — indecency, sexual assault, online solicitation
• White collar offenses — fraud, forgery, identity theft
• Probation revocations and motions to adjudicate
• Expunctions and orders of nondisclosure

For federal charges arising in Lee County, cases are filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division. David White is admitted to practice in the Western, Eastern, Northern, and Southern Districts of Texas.

If you are an out-of-county client

Most of the firm’s Lee County clients have never been in a Giddings courtroom before. They live three hours apart from each other, in different cities, and the only thing they have in common is a Lee County case file.

The firm handles every part of the process from Austin. You will not be expected to drive back and forth for routine matters. Court appearances that require your presence — pleas, hearings, trial — will be scheduled with as much notice as the court allows. Routine pretrial appearances are typically handled by the firm without you having to take the day off and drive in.

You will work directly with David White, Kenneth Hines, and Taylor Kacir. All three review your case weekly. There is no junior associate or contract attorney handling your file in the background.

ALR — 15 days

If you were arrested for DWI in Lee County, you have 15 days from the date of arrest to request an Administrative License Revocation hearing. Missing that deadline forfeits the hearing and the license suspension goes through automatically. Call (512) 369-3737 promptly so the ALR request can be filed on time.

Expunction and nondisclosure in Lee County

If your Lee County case was dismissed, no-billed, or you were acquitted at trial, you may be eligible to have the arrest and charge expunged from your record. Until a judge signs the expunction order, the arrest stays in your record at the Texas Department of Public Safety, on the court docket, and across the commercial background-check databases that employers and landlords use.

Kenneth Hines leads the firm’s expunction practice. He handles eligibility analysis, drafts the petition, files in the appropriate Lee County district court, and appears at the hearing. The firm’s flat fee for expunctions outside Travis County, including Lee, is $2,500. There are no hourly charges and no surprise fees.

If you completed a deferred adjudication probation in Lee County, you may instead be eligible for an order of nondisclosure under Government Code Chapter 411, Subchapter E-1. Nondisclosure does not destroy the record — it seals it from public view, with specific exceptions written into the statute. The eligibility analysis is fact-specific.

How the firm works your Lee County case

By the time you sit down for your first consultation, the firm has already obtained the Probable Cause Affidavit from the arresting agency, read it, and started identifying problems with the State’s case. We do not quote a fee and propose a plea posture before reading the file. Strategy that precedes the file is guesswork.

All three attorneys at the firm work every case as a team. David White, Kenneth Hines, and Taylor Kacir review active cases together each week and share notes through Clio. When the attorney appears at your setting, they have been on your case from intake.

When you call (512) 369-3737 after hours, an attorney answers. Not voicemail. Not an answering service. Kenneth Hines and Taylor Kacir take after-hours calls directly through the firm’s call routing.

Fees

The firm uses flat fees. The free consultation includes the Probable Cause Affidavit review and a frank conversation about what the case is actually worth defending and how.

• DWI 1st — $5,000
• DWI 2nd — starting at $6,000
• Felony DWI — starting at $7,500
• ALR (standalone) — $1,500; included when the DWI fee is paid in full at engagement
• Class A or B misdemeanor — $5,000
• Class C misdemeanor — $1,000
• Felony drug charge — starting at $7,500
• Felony violent offense — starting at $10,000
• Federal charges — starting at $40,000
• Expunction (Lee County) — $2,500 flat
• Nondisclosure — quoted by case after eligibility analysis

Half is paid as good-faith retainer at engagement. Some cases are quoted full upfront depending on complexity. Payment plans are discussed case by case.

The attorneys handling your Lee County case

David White — Managing attorney. Licensed in 2004. Twenty-two years of criminal defense practice. Never employed as a prosecutor. Bar Number 24047094.

Kenneth Hines — Associate attorney; leads the firm’s expunction and nondisclosure practice. Eighteen years of practice with criminal defense as a consistent component throughout. Former General Counsel to the Texas Senate Jurisprudence Committee, 2010–2012.

Taylor Kacir — Associate attorney. Former Senior Misdemeanor County Attorney at the Bell County Attorney’s Office. JD, St. Mary’s University School of Law (with honors), 2022. Practices daily from the firm’s Georgetown office.

What clients say

“Absolute best law practice I’ve ever needed and used. Easy communication. From informative paralegals (Christi) to the attorneys David & Kenneth who helped me in getting my case dismissed.”
— Breah Richardson

“David & Kenneth are heaven sent, the best team in Austin Texas, they had two felonies and one misdemeanor dismissed for me, I was looking at 2-20years and they were ready to take it to trial if need be, the charges didn’t even get indicted.”
— Ashley Norris

The firm has more than 250 five-star client reviews across Google, Avvo, and other legal review platforms.

If you have been arrested in Lee County

Call (512) 369-3737. An attorney answers, not voicemail. The consultation is free and includes a review of your Probable Cause Affidavit. Bring any paperwork you have from the arrest — bond conditions, citations, charging documents, anything law enforcement handed you.

Or fill out the contact form below and you will hear back within 24 hours.