California driving under the influence (DUI) charges come with numerous possible consequences. You could wind up spending time in jail. You might have to pay hefty fines. You could also lose your license.
Most people focus so much on those criminal consequences and avoid jail time that they don’t think about the consequences they will face outside of court. A DUI conviction might mean numerous different social consequences and career ones as well. How can a DUI negatively affect your career?
You could lose your personal and commercial license
It is common practice for the courts to suspend someone’s license after an impaired driving infraction. Obviously, not being able to drive will make it hard to get to and from work.
It could also affect your ability to do your job if you sometimes have to transport materials or make service calls or sales calls off-site. Beyond that, you could lose your eligibility for a commercial driver’s license even if the DUI occurred in your own vehicle and not a commercial one.
Your employer might penalize you
Your employment contract might include clauses about appropriate behavior. Some companies have policies against convictions for criminal offenses while you work for them.
If your company has such a policy, you could potentially lose your job or face other disciplinary action due to your conviction. Your employer may also refuse to accommodate pressure on your scheduling availability caused by the criminal consequences of your charges, like incarceration.
Your record will have a chilling effect on future offers
Checking someone’s background before hiring or promoting them has become a standard business practice. Unfortunately, that means that those who do get convicted of a crime or plead guilty to charges to avoid a trial will be at a significant disadvantage in improving their job or getting a new one.
Fighting pending DUI charges can help you avoid a criminal record and all of the secondary consequences that come from a conviction.