Omaha · Douglas & Sarpy County · Free consultation
The State started building its case the night you were stopped. You have ten days to start yours. Daniel R. Kovar has defended Nebraska drivers for fifteen years — and he answers his own phone.
Calls answered 24 hours a day. The first conversation costs nothing.
Arrested within the last ten days? Your license hearing deadline is running right now — call the office today.
The deadline nobody mentions at the jail
When an officer takes your license at the roadside, Nebraska's Administrative License Revocation starts the same night — inside the DMV, not the courthouse. You are handed a paper permit good for fifteen days. To keep driving past that, a written request for a hearing has to be filed within ten.
Nobody at booking will remind you. It is the most common way a good defense is lost before it ever begins — not in front of a judge, but in two weeks of silence.
What a conviction actually costs
People arrive at the first meeting worried about a court fine. It is almost never the part that changes their life.
A first offense carries a six-month revocation in this state. An ignition interlock permit can keep you on the road — but the application, the installation, the monthly download and the cost all become your problem, for the better part of a year.
Commercial drivers are held to .04, and one conviction can end a CDL career outright. Nurses, teachers, contractors, realtors — anyone holding a state license faces a reporting obligation to their board that runs alongside the criminal case.
A Nebraska conviction sits on your driving record for fifteen years. It shows up on background checks, and if there is ever a second charge inside that window the first one is what turns a misdemeanor into something far heavier.
Fines and court costs are the small line. Insurance surcharges, an SR-22 filing, interlock leasing, the alcohol assessment and whatever treatment it recommends routinely add several thousand dollars over the following year.
How the case is actually fought
A number on a printout is not proof. It is the end of a long chain — the stop, the roadside tests, the instrument, the paperwork. Every link has rules attached to it, and every one of them is somewhere the State can fall short.
An officer needs a specific, articulable reason to pull you over — not a hunch, and not the hour of the night. Drifting inside your own lane, a dim plate light, an anonymous caller. I read the cruiser and body-camera footage against what the report claims happened, and the two do not always agree. When the stop fails, everything after it fails with it.
The walk-and-turn, the one-leg stand and the eye test only mean something when they are given exactly as the federal manual requires: level ground, specific instructions, specific scoring. Add an injury, a gravel shoulder, cowboy boots or a passing semi and the results stop being evidence. I hold the same practitioner certification the officer does, which makes each deviation easy to name in court.
Breath testing here runs on the DataMaster. It comes with a fifteen-minute observation period, a maintenance log, a calibration schedule and a certified operator requirement — and I subpoena all of it, every time. Mouth alcohol, acid reflux, radio interference and a rising blood-alcohol curve are documented reasons a machine reports a number higher than the truth.
Most cases end in a conversation rather than a verdict. That conversation goes very differently when the county attorney knows the file has already been taken apart and that you are genuinely prepared to try it. When trial is the better option, we try it. That readiness is the leverage; it is not a bluff you can run twice.
The lawyer who will handle your file
I spent my first four years as a deputy county attorney, charging the same cases I now defend. I know how these files get built, what the reports leave out, and which weaknesses a prosecutor is quietly hoping nobody notices.
Since 2015 my practice has been DUI defense almost exclusively — first offenses, refusals, aggravated readings, commercial licenses, and out-of-state drivers stopped on I-80 who have no intention of moving here to fight it. Every client works with me directly. There is no associate, no case manager and no answering service between you and the person who will stand up in court.
Why clients stay with me
DUI work is not a sideline here. Nearly every case I have tried since 2015 turned on a breath reading, a blood draw or a refusal — the same arguments, the same instruments, the same judges.
You will hear what your case realistically looks like in the first conversation, including the times the honest answer is that the evidence is strong. Nobody gets sold an outcome to close a fee agreement.
You get my cell number at the first meeting. Calls and messages are answered the same day, evenings and weekends included — which is when most people are arrested, and when the questions are worst.
Video, maintenance logs, calibration records and dispatch audio are requested in every case, not only the ones headed for trial. It is precisely why so many of them never get that far.
The criminal case, the license revocation, the interlock permit, the alcohol assessment and your employer's reporting rules are handled as one matter. Winning the hearing and missing the permit deadline helps nobody.
Douglas, Sarpy, Lancaster, Cass. Knowing which judge takes a suppression motion seriously, and which prosecutor will move once the maintenance log lands on their desk, is not something a directory listing can tell you.
Past outcomes
None of these were won at trial by a speech. They were won by reading paperwork the State assumed nobody would read.
Client was followed for more than a mile after leaving a Benson bar and stopped for “drifting within the lane.” The cruiser video showed no lane deviation at all. Both counts were dismissed once the suppression motion was filed.
A .134 breath reading became a reckless driving plea with no revocation after maintenance records showed the machine's required accuracy check had lapsed eleven days before the test was administered.
Petition filed on day eight. The arresting officer's sworn report left out the time the observation period began, so the State could not establish the test was valid. Revocation rescinded; the client kept an unrestricted license.
Client with a documented panic disorder was charged with refusal after failing to produce a sufficient breath sample. Two days of testimony, including a pulmonologist on lung capacity under acute anxiety. Acquitted on all counts.
These summaries describe past matters and are provided for information only. Every case turns on its own facts, its own evidence and its own courtroom. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any other case, including yours.
In their words
“I called at eleven at night from a police station parking lot and an actual lawyer picked up. He told me exactly what to do over the next ten days before the word fee was ever mentioned.”
“I had already accepted that I was going to lose my license. He found something in the officer's own paperwork that I would never have known to look for. I drove myself to work the entire time.”
“I drive for a living. He treated my CDL as though it were the actual case — because for me it was. Six months on, I still have it.”
Client comments have been shortened for length and are published with permission; names are abbreviated at the clients' request. A testimonial describes one person's experience. It is not a guarantee, a warranty, or a prediction about the result of any other matter.
Questions people actually ask
Yes — by phone or at the office, with no fee and no obligation to hire anyone. Most of them take about fifteen minutes. Whatever you tell me stays between us whether or not you decide to work with me; that duty attaches to the consultation itself, not to the fee agreement.
Usually more than people expect. A breath number is only admissible if the stop was lawful, the observation period was kept, the operator was certified and the instrument was in calibration. Those four things are documented somewhere, and the documents are obtainable. A high reading changes the strategy; it rarely ends the case.
Refusal is charged as a separate offense in this state, and it carries penalties in the same range as the DUI itself — so it is not a free pass. It is also not hopeless: a refusal case depends on whether the advisement was properly given and whether what you did legally amounts to a refusal at all. Do not guess at this one on your own.
The permit you were handed at the stop runs fifteen days. To contest the revocation, a written hearing request has to reach the DMV within ten days of the arrest. That is the deadline that catches people, because it has nothing to do with your court date and nobody at booking mentions it. If you are inside that window, call today rather than tomorrow.
A first offense is a Class W misdemeanor, and the statute does carry a mandatory minimum — but in practice most first offenses here are resolved on probation rather than a jail sentence. What moves that needle is your record, the reading itself, and whether there was a collision or a passenger under sixteen in the car. Any lawyer who promises you an answer before reading the file is guessing.
In most cases, yes — through an ignition interlock permit, which lets you drive a vehicle fitted with an approved device. The timing matters and interacts with whether you request the DMV hearing, so it is worth deciding both together rather than one at a time. I handle the permit application as part of the case, not as an extra.
A flat fee, quoted in writing at the consultation, covering the criminal case and the license hearing together — not an hourly meter that grows every time you call. You will know the number before you decide anything, and payment plans are available. If your situation genuinely does not need a lawyer, I will tell you that too.
For most first offenses, no — appearances can generally be waived or handled by counsel, and the license side is dealt with through the DMV in writing. Your home state will eventually learn of the outcome through the interstate compact, which is exactly why the outcome is worth fighting for even though you do not live here.
Free consultation
The fastest route is the phone — I answer it myself, and most questions are settled in ten minutes. If you would rather write it down first, this form comes straight to me.
Call (402) 555-0184 — free