So, you need a lawyer...

You need a lawyer. Your friend needs a lawyer.  Your mother needs a lawyer.   Your niece has been arrested for drug possession.   Your new company is very successful and rapidly expanding.   You need help negotiating commercial leases for expanding office locations, drafting employment agreements and other contracts.  You need strategic legal advice.  Your brother’s business just launched its most promising product and he discovers that his business partner is planning to take a high paid position with the company’s chief competitor.  Your brother’s partner knows all of the company’s secrets.  Your neighbor was seriously injured in a car accident.  The other driver was on his company’s business, driving a company vehicle and he was intoxicated after attending a company party.  The geotechnical engineer you hired discovers that the developers who built the new houses uphill, behind yours, changed the courses of storm water on the surface and under the earth redirecting it towards your property. Your house is moving.  There are cracks in the walls.  The doors stick. 

"There must be the perfect lawyer for your mother, for your neighbor, your niece and your brother's company."

There are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands - actually considerably more than a million lawyers in the United Stares.  Surely there is the right lawyer for you, for your case.  There must be the perfect lawyer for your mother, for your neighbor, your niece and your brother’s company.  If you don’t already know this lawyer just how do you find the right lawyer?

Lawyers confront this problem too.  When my services are sought for work in an area in which I have chosen not to practice, I am invariable asked to recommend another lawyer.  Then I have the same problem as anyone else looking for a lawyer.  It’s not so easy but, in the search to find someone whom I am confident to recommend, I use the same methods that others should use in finding a good lawyer.  First, do I have first hand knowledge about a lawyer I might recommend?  Many times in my cases, I have had to engage the services of other lawyers in order to properly serve my clients.  I have hired lawyers with specialties in international tax law, workers compensation law, family law and more.   I can recommend, with confidence, good lawyers whose work I know from first hand experience.  

If I don’t know a lawyer from first hand experience, I might know someone by reputation.  While not as good as first hand experience, being held in high esteem by those who should know, perhaps from their own first hand experience, is a pretty good predictor of performance.

If the quest to find a good lawyer is a new experience for you or if you are experienced and you or your friends or family members need to find lawyers to help with new and different problems or opportunities, then we hope that the articles to follow will help to inform you so that you may more confidently make a selection.  No one but the client should or can properly select the lawyer and, as with every other choice or selection in life, the more information, the better.

"One thing the lawyers and clients have very much in common is the most basic mistake in choice and selection."

So, in the next two articles I will discuss not only some good hints on how to select the proper lawyer for the proper case but also, and this will be very important in selecting the lawyer, a few points on how lawyers ought to select their cases and their clients.  One thing the lawyers and clients have very much in common is the most basic mistake in choice and selection.  For the lawyer, that is taking every case that comes by with a paying client and for the client that is choosing, with relief but not much thought or consideration, the first lawyer who is willing to take the case.

Stay tuned. More to come …

Content prepared by Edmond McGill. © Edmond McGill, 2016

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This message and the information presented here do not create or evidence an attorney-client relationship nor are they intended to convey legal advice or counsel.  You should not act upon this information without seeking advice from a qualified lawyer licensed in your own state or country who actually represents you. In this regard, you may contact The McGill Law Office and then representation and advice may be given if, and only if, attorney Edmond McGill agrees to do so in a written contract signed by him.