Michigan Criminal Lawyers Blog
A person researching a Michigan license appeal will find instructions addressed to four different offices. One website says to file with the DAAD. An older guide mentions the DLAD. A form references the Administrative Hearings Section. The state’s own pages talk about OHAO and a system called DAIS.
The reality is simpler than the search results suggest. Most of those names describe the same office at different points in its history, and for anyone filing today, two terms carry the weight: OHAO is the office that decides your appeal, and DAIS is the system where you file it.
One Office, Several Names
The office inside the Michigan Department of State that decides license appeals has operated under a series of names over the years. Practitioners who have been at this a long time remember it as the Driver License Appeal Division, the DLAD. It was later known as the Driver Assessment and Appeal Division, the DAAD, which is still the name most people use if they went through a hearing a decade ago. It operated for a stretch as the Administrative Hearings Section, the AHS.
Today it is the Office of Hearings and Administrative Oversight, or OHAO. That is the office that holds driver’s license restoration hearings and oversees ignition interlock compliance for the Secretary of State.
The old names have not fully retired. The office’s intake email is still SOS-AHS@Michigan.gov. Court opinions, older forms, and many law firm websites still say “DAAD”. None of this changes anything about your case. A DAAD denial from 2015 and an OHAO hearing notice from this year come from the same institution. What matters is following the current filing instructions rather than the ones attached to an old name.
What OHAO Actually Does
OHAO is not a court, although a hearing before it feels like one. Its hearing officers are attorneys employed by the Secretary of State. They take testimony under oath, weigh documentary evidence, and issue written decisions.
The office’s best-known docket is license restoration: the hearings that decide whether a driver revoked after multiple drunk or drugged driving convictions gets back on the road. It also decides implied-consent appeals, handles ignition interlock violation matters, and conducts administrative reviews for people who now live outside Michigan and need a Michigan hold cleared rather than a Michigan license issued. Each of those case types has its own issues and rules, which is one reason generic advice about “license appeals” so often misses the mark.
For restoration cases specifically, two structural points shape everything. The burden of proof is on the driver, by clear and convincing evidence, one of the highest standards in civil law. And you generally get one restoration hearing per year. Lose it, and the realistic options are to file again or to appeal to circuit court, ordinarily within 63 days of the decision, though a court may allow up to 182 days on a showing of good cause. That is why the filing stage, which may look like paperwork, is the foundation of the whole case.
What DAIS Is
DAIS stands for the Driver Appeal Integrated System. It is not an office, and it does not decide anything. It is the state’s online portal for submitting a hearing request, uploading evidence, and tracking the status of an appeal.
Access runs through the state’s MiLogin identity system. An individual filing a personal appeal signs in through milogin.michigan.gov, verifies identity, and submits the hearing request electronically. Attorneys have a separate professional portal at milogintp.michigan.gov that allows them to file and manage appeals on a client’s behalf.
Once a request is in DAIS, the system shows where things stand, and the office can send email notices as the case moves. Compared with mailing an evidence package to Lansing and waiting for a letter, the practical difference is knowing what the state received and when it received it.
You Can Still File on Paper
The online route is the one the state built for speed, but it is not mandatory. OHAO accepts hearing requests and evidence in three other ways: by mail to the Michigan Department of State, OHAO, P.O. Box 30196, Lansing, MI 48909; by fax to 517-335-2190; and by email to SOS-AHS@Michigan.gov, with attachments in PDF format.
Whichever channel you use, the substance is identical. In a typical restoration case, that means the hearing request form, the substance use evaluation and drug screen where an alcohol or drug arrest makes them required, support letters or witnesses, and interlock or medical documentation where those apply. The package should be complete when it goes in: the Department or the hearing officer may refuse to accept additional written evidence after the request is submitted. Filing online does not soften that rule, but it does make it easier to confirm what was actually received.
The Hearing Itself Happens on Microsoft Teams
There is no drive to a hearing office anymore. OHAO conducts its hearings by video conference through Microsoft Teams. You can appear from home, your lawyer’s office, or anywhere with a stable connection. Witnesses can appear the same way. The state maintains a troubleshooting page for hearing connections.
The remote format has not made hearings casual. Testimony is under oath, the hearing officer controls the proceeding, and credibility is being judged through the camera just as it would be across a table. Prepare for your hearing; treat it like court: a quiet room, documents at hand, full attention for the hour.
If a scheduled date becomes impossible, adjournment requests must be made in writing at least two business days before the hearing, with supporting proof, and the request is not effective until it is granted. Simply not appearing risks losing the year.
Where the Terminology Confuses People
The acronym tangle leads to concrete mistakes, and three of them recur constantly.
People follow outdated filing instructions. A blog post from 2016 walks them through mailing forms to the DAAD under procedures that no longer align with current package requirements, and the request is returned as deficient. The current instructions live on the Secretary of State’s license restoration pages, and the current forms carry OHAO’s name.
People confuse OHAO with the courts. A license restoration after a revocation is an administrative case before the Secretary of State, not a motion in the court that handled the underlying conviction. The circuit court generally enters a restoration case only on appeal from an OHAO denial. That review is largely confined to the record the hearing officer had, which is one more reason the original evidence package matters so much.
People think DAIS is the decision-maker. Submitting a request through DAIS is progress, but the system accepts filings without judging them. A package can move through DAIS smoothly and still fail at the hearing because the evaluation is stale or the letters contradict the testimony to come.
What This Means for Your Appeal
Set the acronyms aside, and the process is this: you prepare a complete evidence package, you file it with OHAO, most often through DAIS, you receive a Teams hearing date, and you prove your case to a hearing officer under a demanding standard, with roughly one chance per year to get it right.
Grabel & Associates has been handling Michigan license appeals since long before the current names, back when practitioners still filed with the DLAD, and we handle them now through DAIS filings and Teams hearings before OHAO. The names have changed more often than the fundamentals. If you are starting an appeal or starting over after a denial, contact us, and we will make sure your case is filed in the right place, in the right form, with evidence prepared to meet the required standard.
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This blog post is provided by Grabel & Associates for general informational purposes only and is not legal advice. License rules, forms, fees, and procedures change, and your situation depends on your specific driving record. Reading this does not create an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your own license, consult a qualified attorney.