I was wondering how to know if you found a good lawyer? Ask them the following questions to find out.
The average person will only have to hire a lawyer once or twice in their entire lifetime. Unless you plan on committing some serious crimes, you probably don’t even have a lawyer in your phone contacts. This means that most people will never know what to look for when hiring a lawyer. Since we only need one once or twice, we might just pick the nearest one to us. This isn’t how you find a good lawyer; it’s how you find a mediocre one.
So here are our top tips on how to find a good lawyer near you. Ask the following questions, and depending on their answers, you will have a clearer idea of their skill level.
What questions should you ask a potential lawyer?
Before you rush off and hire a new lawyer, the experts at BSM Law recommend you ask the following questions.
Question 1: How long have you practiced law?
We appreciate that everybody must learn how to do their job sometime. However, we don’t want them to know how to do their job with our case. We want nothing but the best. If your potential new lawyer has only been practicing law for a year or two, they would prefer someone with at least a decade of experience. Comparing experience levels can narrow down your list of choices.
Question 2: How many cases are you working on currently?
If your potential lawyer has been working with several clients recently, then your case may be one too many. Lawyers can see anything from two or three clients to 40 or 50 clients at any given time. Public defenders could have as many as 100. So if a lawyer is seeing anything more than 14 or 15 cases, the chances are they may overlook some of your details. Now, we want 100% of their attention when they’re working on our case. So if the answer is any more than 15, we recommend you pick another.
Question 3: What’s your success rate?
Success rates per case are difficult to measure. So how then does one measure success? A lawyer’s job is to avoid going to court, so it is more successful if the lawyer doesn’t go to court all the time than if they consistently win. Ideally, you want a lawyer who does both.
Question 4: What’s your specialty?
Different lawyers focus their skills on various aspects of the law. You don’t want a criminal defense lawyer if you’re going through a divorce. You want a family court lawyer. Likewise, if you’ve been involved in an accident, you don’t want someone used to handling fraud cases. Match what you need to the lawyers’ specialties.
Use Free Consultations
Remember that you can shop around to find a good lawyer. Use free consultations and ask the questions above to narrow down your choices in representation.
