Legal Services

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A stressful subject, because arriving at a situation where legal services need to be consulted is no cup of tea. Lawyers tend to get a bad rap for a lot of things, as deep-down folks don’t ever want to get around to needing nor facing a lawyer. In a way, these feelings unfairly cast a bad light over the entire sector, because without the rule of law a country simply isn’t a country. Legal services exist to keep the playing field as fair as possible. Yet choosing which service you call upon should be done with several things in mind.

One of the trickiest things about selecting legal services are the attorneys, ha! They will be the points of contact at a firm, not a sales or marketing person, and they are all capable folks who naturally sell themselves well. After all, lawyers are an educated bunch and it would make sense that they speak about themselves in a positive light and in general know what they’re doing. As with some similar posts we’ve touched on before, the best recommendation for any service is from a family member or friend. Someone you trust who has used a service and was pleased should be heeded. Another good place is the state bar association. Every state has a bar association, and these are great resources for finding lawyers over a range of practice areas. If an attorney is registered with the bar association, odds are they are decent at what they do. But this begs the question you’re all yelling at your screen, “how do you know (outside of a personal recommendation) if an attorney and their legal services are good?”

The good news is most lawyers offer free, initial consultations. Take advantage of these, because as someone who has contracted legal services, they don’t stay free, that’s for sure. During this initial consultation, come prepared with a list of questions. The first question should always be their practice area(s). Most legal professional have multiple areas of practice, principally because the law is the law, and while tort law is very different from divorce law, there are many different areas within the larger tort and divorce law arenas where sub-specializations are quite normal.

Second are costs. A touchy subject, but they need to be touched. Legal services over time can be quite costly. There’s a reason your lawyer likely lives in a nice home. He or she is talented and is paid handsomely for it. During this initial consultation (the free one), a proper legal service professional should be able to provide a ballpark estimate of their costs. The facts of your case will be enough to ballpark this figure, and if it isn’t, you need to provide more facts. Third, the legal team. Some lawyers work completely alone, but many have a team behind them. You want that team to be the 2018 New England Patriots, the 3-Peat Chicago Bulls, the championship Yankee run of the 90s. After all, you’re spending some big money, so dig into the team members in the same manner as you have been digging into the lawyer you are meeting with.

And finally, personality. You’re likely to go through some stressful times with legal services so make sure you don’t hate your lawyer. We can’t imagine anything worse. We’re not saying best buddies for life, but personality is important so don’t push it to the side. Best of luck with this search, once you get through it the grass gets greener again. Just be sure to weather the storm intelligently.