We are a Richmond firm handling traffic and criminal defense throughout Virginia. Our practice areas:

• DUI/DWI
• Reckless Driving
• Speeding
• Commercial Drivers
• Hit and Run
• Driving on a Suspended License
• Driving Without a License
• Underage Possession of Alcohol
• Out-of-State Drivers
• Drug Possession
• Assault and Battery
• Petty Larceny
• Public Intoxication
• Eluding

Most of the people we represent are not career defendants. They are drivers, students, commercial drivers, and service members who are in a criminal courtroom for the first time and did not expect to be. In Virginia, a speeding ticket and a criminal charge can look identical on paper. That is most of why this firm exists.

John M. Weiland, founder. Approximately 15 years defending traffic and criminal cases in Virginia. University of Virginia, then University of Richmond School of Law, J.D. cum laude. Admitted in Virginia and in the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia. Published by the Journal of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association on DUI/DWI defense. Served as a Green Beret with U.S. Army Special Forces before practicing law.

Mark W. Button, partner. Virginia Tech, magna cum laude, then a law degree from the University of North Carolina. Practiced criminal defense exclusively at a Henrico County firm before joining Weiland Button. Has tried cases to both judges and juries.

Josh P. Stock. Fluent in Spanish. Clerked for three judges on the Virginia Beach Circuit Court, then spent two years as a public defender in Suffolk and Virginia Beach. George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School, J.D. cum laude.

Noah B. Collier. Wake Forest University, then Regent University School of Law.

¿Habla español? Josh puede ayudarle directamente con su caso criminal o de tráfico en Virginia.

This is the question that matters most, and the answer is the code section printed on your summons. Not the words the officer wrote. The number.

These are Class 1 misdemeanors, meaning crimes:

• Reckless driving, in all fourteen of its forms, §§ 46.2-852 through 46.2-865
• DUI, § 18.2-266
• Driving on a suspended license, § 46.2-301
• Hit and run, § 46.2-894, where there is injury or more than $1,000 in property damage

Up to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine. The same class as assault and battery. They cannot be prepaid, and a conviction is a criminal record.

Two that catch people constantly:

• § 46.2-853, “improper brakes” or “failure to maintain control,” is reckless driving. The words may appear nowhere on your ticket. It is not an equipment violation and repairing the car does not fix it.
• § 46.2-862 makes it reckless driving to go 20 mph over the limit, or any speed in excess of 85 regardless of the limit. On a 70 mph interstate, 86 is a criminal charge.

If you are not sure what you are holding, that is the normal position, not an embarrassing one. Bring us the summons and we will tell you.

Yes. The consultation is free and confidential, and it is a real conversation about your case rather than a sales call.

What we will go through:

• What you are actually charged with, by code section
• What the Commonwealth has to prove
• The realistic range of outcomes, including the bad end of it
• Whether a reduction is plausible on your facts
• Whether you need to appear
• What it will cost

What we will not do is promise you a result. Anyone who does that at a first meeting, before reading the summons and your record, is selling you something.

• The summons or ticket. This is the one that matters. Photograph both sides if you would rather send it ahead.
• Your driving record, if you can pull it
• Anything that decays: dashcam footage, phone photos, video. These overwrite on their own schedule, so get them off the device now rather than after the court date.
• The names of any witnesses
• Your own written account, while you still remember it
• A speedometer calibration, if this is a speed case. Cheap, quick, and it has to be done reasonably soon after the stop to mean anything.

Tell us at the first conversation if you hold a CDL, a security clearance, a professional license, or a visa, or if you are not a U.S. citizen. See question 12.

We will quote you a fee at the consultation, before you hire us, once we know what you are charged with and what the case involves.

What to ask any attorney you talk to, including us:

• Is the fee flat or hourly?
• What does it cover? A single court date, or the whole case?
• What happens if the case is continued and there is a second court date?
• Does it include an appeal, if there is one?
• What are court costs and fines, and are those separate? They are.
• Who will actually appear in court?

Fees are separate from what the court imposes. A fine and court costs come from the court, not from us, and no attorney can waive them.

If it is a traffic infraction, often you do not have to appear.

If it is reckless driving, DUI, or another misdemeanor, the default is that you do. It is a criminal charge and it cannot be prepaid.

Some Virginia courts will grant a waiver of appearance on motion, based on distance and the facts of the case. It is at the judge’s discretion, it varies from court to court, and no attorney can promise it to you in advance. If your case goes to trial, expect to be there.

If travel is a real problem, raise it at the first conversation. A waiver motion is something that gets filed early or not at all.

Yes, and it is a large part of what we do.

Virginia is a genuine trap for drivers passing through. I-95, I-85, I-64, and I-81 carry 70 mph limits over long stretches, and 16 mph over that is a criminal charge here, not a ticket. Drivers routinely discover this after they have gone home.

What you should know:

• You face the same charge and the same penalties as a Virginia resident
• Reckless driving cannot be prepaid. You must answer the summons.
• If you do not appear, the court can issue a capias, an arrest warrant that does not expire and that surfaces at a traffic stop in another state years later
• Virginia reports convictions to your home state through the Driver License Compact, covering 45 states and DC. Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Tennessee, and Wisconsin are not members, which is not the same as no consequence.
• Your privilege to drive in Virginia can be suspended, and driving here on that suspension is a separate Class 1 misdemeanor

Your case is heard where the stop happened, not where you live or where you were going. On the interstates, county lines fall between exits and the courthouse can be an hour from the mile marker.

Central and Eastern Virginia. The full list of counties and cities is in the Jurisdictions section of this site. Check the court named on your summons and bring it to the consultation.

One thing worth knowing about how Virginia courts are structured. Traffic and misdemeanor cases start in General District Court. If you are convicted there, you have a right to appeal to Circuit Court, where you get an entirely new trial and may request a jury. That is not an appeal in the ordinary sense of reviewing what went wrong below. It is a fresh start, and there is a deadline for noting it.

What varies between courts: docket days, how cases are called, local procedure. What does not vary: the Code of Virginia. The statute reads the same in Emporia as it does in Henrico.

Sometimes, and it depends entirely on the facts. This is where most of the work in a traffic case actually happens.

The one worth understanding is § 46.2-869, improper driving. A court may reduce reckless driving to improper driving where the defendant’s culpability is slight.

A police officer cannot write a ticket for improper driving. It does not exist as a charge an officer can bring. It exists only as a reduction, which means it can only happen in court, which is the entire reason to be in court rather than mailing a check.

Results depend on the specific facts of each case. Prior outcomes do not guarantee or predict a similar result in any other matter.

That is a fair question, and the honest answer is that “pleading guilty” is not one decision.

• Which charge you plead to decides whether you have a criminal record and what it says. That is what question 10 is about.
• The restricted license is petitioned for at the time of the plea. It is not automatic, and what you do not ask for, you do not get.
• The collateral consequences frequently outweigh the sentence. A CDL, a clearance, a professional license, or immigration status may care enormously about a conviction the court treats as routine.
• The record outlasts the sentence. The fine gets paid and forgotten. The conviction sits on your record for 11 years and on your criminal history permanently.

Some cases genuinely do not need a lawyer. A first speeding ticket at 8 over is probably not worth a fee, and we will tell you that at the consultation rather than after you have paid one.

Yes, and if you hold a CDL, say so in the first sentence of the first conversation, because the federal consequences run on a different track from the state case and are frequently worse.

Under 49 CFR § 383.51:

• Major offenses carry a one-year disqualification on the first offense: DUI, refusing the test, leaving the scene, and using a vehicle to commit a felony. These count whether you were in a commercial vehicle or your own car, off duty. A second is a lifetime disqualification.
• Serious violations include reckless driving, speeding 15+ over, improper or erratic lane changes, following too closely, and texting in a CMV. Two in three years is a 60-day disqualification. Three is 120 days.
• There is no hardship or restricted CDL. No state may issue one during a disqualification.
• You must notify your employer within 30 days of a conviction, and your licensing state as well
• Federal anti-masking rules prevent using a diversion or driver improvement program to keep a conviction off your record

This is why the § 46.2-869 reduction matters so much for a CDL holder. Reckless driving is a serious violation. Improper driving is not. That is the line between a countable offense and a non-countable one.

The same logic applies to a security clearance, a professional license, or a visa. Raise it early. It changes what we are trying to accomplish.

Assault and battery under § 18.2-57 is a Class 1 misdemeanor, the same class as reckless driving and DUI: up to 12 months and a $2,500 fine.

What these cases actually turn on:

• Whether the Commonwealth can prove its case, which frequently depends on a single witness
• Self-defense. Virginia recognizes it at common law, has no stand-your-ground statute, and the duty to retreat attaches to fault rather than location. The burden of production is on the defendant, and it is a real defense that has to be raised properly.
• Whether it is charged as domestic assault under § 18.2-57.2, which is a different statute with different consequences. Dating alone does not make it domestic. The definition keys on cohabitation, not on the relationship.
• The record. An assault conviction is visible to employers and landlords indefinitely and reaches immigration status in ways a traffic charge does not.

Whether you need an attorney depends on your exposure and your facts. We will tell you what we think at the consultation.

Yes, and the law here changed significantly.

Possession within the legal limit is lawful for adults 21 and older in Virginia. A great deal of published guidance still describes the old $25 civil penalty from the 2020 decriminalization, which was superseded by legalization effective July 1, 2021.

What is still an offense:

• Possession by anyone under 21
• Possession above the legal limit, and distribution is an entirely different matter with felony exposure
• Public consumption
• Driving while impaired by it. § 18.2-266 is not an alcohol statute. Legal possession is not a defense to impaired driving, there is no breath test for cannabis, and no equivalent of the 0.08 presumption. These cases turn on the officer’s observations and a blood result whose relationship to impairment is genuinely contestable.

And the part that catches people who did nothing illegal under Virginia law: marijuana remains illegal federally. If you hold a CDL, a security clearance, or you are in the military or on a visa, federal law is the law that applies to you, and Virginia’s legalization does not reach it.

Two things that most published guidance on this offense still gets wrong:

• There is no longer an automatic license suspension. § 18.2-259.1 imposed a six-month license forfeiture on any drug conviction, driving or not. It was repealed in 2020, along with § 46.2-390.1.
• A drug conviction no longer costs you federal student aid. Congress eliminated that restriction through the FAFSA Simplification Act. The tiered suspension of eligibility that appears on most drug-charge pages is describing repealed law. Institutional aid and university conduct proceedings are separate, and those do still reach students.

What is real:

• Schedule I or II possession is a Class 5 felony, though the court and jury have discretion to punish it as a misdemeanor. Schedule III is a Class 1 misdemeanor and Schedule IV is a Class 2, a distinction that gets merged constantly.
• Constructive possession requires awareness of presence and character, plus dominion and control. Mere proximity is not enough.
• § 18.2-251 first offender treatment defers and dismisses the charge. The dismissal is not expungeable, and it is available once in your lifetime. Spending it on the smallest charge in a group forecloses it on a larger one later.

• Call (804) 355-8037 and speak with our staff
• Use the contact form and we will call you at a time you choose
• Email info@weilandbutton.com

Before you call, do these two things:

• Find the summons and read the code section on it. It determines everything, and it is frequently not the charge people assume.
• Do not prepay anything, and do not miss the court date. A failure to appear produces a capias, which does not expire.

Our office: 3437 W. Cary St., Richmond, VA 23221