Collin County ALR Hearing Guide

Collin County judges hand out one of the more forgiving occupational licenses in Texas, and it's worth knowing before you petition. Instead of locking you into fixed clock hours, County Court at Law No. 1's standing order lets you drive up to 12 hours in any 24-hour period, as long as you keep a logbook in the car, a spiral notebook is fine, recording the start time, destination, and purpose of every trip before you pull out and the end time and mileage when you arrive. That flexibility means a 10 p.m. grocery run or an unexpected errand doesn't turn into a driving-while-invalid charge, which is a real risk under the rigid hour grids used elsewhere.

But first there's the 15-day deadline.

The 15-day request

From the day you're served the DIC-25 notice, you have 15 days to ask for a hearing to stop the license suspension. Do nothing and the suspension starts automatically on the 40th day. A first refusal to test is a 180-day suspension; a first failure at 0.08 or higher is 90 days.

If the case was a blood draw instead of a breath test, the officer usually doesn't take your license at the scene. DPS mails the notice weeks or months later once the lab result comes back, and the clock runs from the mailing date, not the day you actually read it. If you've moved and haven't updated your address with DPS, you can miss the window without ever knowing it existed.

Send the request to DPS in Austin. There's no drop box at a local Collin County DPS office or the courthouse. File online for an instant receipt, fax to 512-424-2650 and keep the confirmation page, or send certified mail to P.O. Box 4040, Austin, TX 78765. Filing on time stays the suspension, and the DIC-25 stays valid until a judge rules, which in the Dallas SOAH region runs three to six months out.

The hearing is in Dallas, not McKinney

Collin County ALR hearings are run by the State Office of Administrative Hearings at 8700 North Stemmons Freeway, Suite 126, in Dallas. Show up at the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney and you've defaulted. Almost every hearing is on Zoom now, with the link inside the mailed Scheduling Order, so keep your address current and join the waiting room 15 minutes early. A technical failure counts as a no-show. DPS doesn't charge a discovery fee for the report and video; the costs are a $10 witness fee plus mileage to subpoena the officer and about $10 to $20 for a certified driving record.

The occupational license

File the petition in County Court at Law No. 1 at 2100 Bloomdale Road, McKinney. Attorneys prefer it over the JP courts here because its standing orders are predictable. You need an SR-22 certificate from your insurer, which is a filing, not a policy, and if your coverage lapses the insurer notifies DPS and the license is revoked.

The signed order works as your license for 45 days. In that window, send a certified copy plus the SR-22 and the $125 reinstatement fee to DPS. If the plastic card doesn't arrive within 45 days, the order expires and you have to go back to the court for an amended order.

DPS offices

All three area offices are appointment only, with no same-day walk-ins. The Carrollton Mega Center at 4600 State Highway 121 is the biggest but is often booked months out; a few same-day slots open online around 7:30 a.m. The Plano office is at 2109 West Parker Road and McKinney's is at 400 Powerhouse Street.