Let’s say that you need to hire a lawyer for some advice or to handle a specific case, such as a bankruptcy, a real estate problem, a personal injury, or some other problem. How do you find the right lawyer for your problem?
The right lawyer for you depends upon your legal problem. For instance, let’s suppose that you’re thinking of getting a will written to pass your property on to your children. If you have a small estate consisting only of your house, a few shares of stock, some life insurance, and a 401(k) or IRA account that you want to simply pass on to your children evenly, there is generally no need for you to see a Certified Specialist in Wills, Trusts, and Estate Planning.

On the other hand, if you’re a multi-millionaire with an expensive house, a vacation house, several apartment buildings, a successful business, and a hefty investment portfolio, then you probably should see the Certified Specialist who can help form a legal strategy for passing your property to your kids as soon as possible with the government taking as little a share of your estate as possible.

The right lawyer for you may not be the most expensive and experienced lawyer with the national reputation. If you’re a small business and thinking about incorporating or forming a Limited Liability Company (LLC), then you want a lawyer competent in business law, but you don’t need a lawyer who advises Fortune 500 companies.

Should you retain a lawyer who is a Certified Specialist in the area of law involved? For instance, if you are planning on divorcing your spouse, do you need a Certified Specialist in Family Law? First, you should be aware that not every state certifies lawyers as specialists, and those that do certify specialists usually do so only in a small number of areas.

In the old days, lawyers were prohibited from advertising their services. Clients were obtained through recommendations, word of mouth, the lawyer speaking at civic organizations, and the like. Then, in the 1977 case of Bates v. State of Arizona, the United States Supreme Court held that attorneys have the right to advertise their services. After the Bates decision, attorneys bought full-page ads in the yellow pages and a few even advertised their services on the television and radio.

Today, many lawyers have turned to the Internet to advertise their services. The Internet can be wonderful source of information about a law firm, including how long it has been around, what type of cases it handles, and profiles on the firm’s lawyers, among other information.

Should you hire a lawyer based on a television ad? Television ads are expensive. To make up for it, the attorney must deal in volume. The attorney may be running in effect a “legal mill,” in which the lawyer hires paralegals and legal assistants to do much of the work on your case. Because the lawyer deals in volume, he or she may not spend much of his or her own time working on your case.

A legal firm that advertises its services for auto accidents may have ex-insurance adjusters working for it who do all of the negotiating with the insurance company. When it is clear the insurance company will not pay a dime more than its final offer, the law firm will convince the injured victim to accept the offer. Insurance companies tend to low-ball legal mills, knowing that the law firm will not file a case in court. The one advantage that legal mills has is that they tend to settle their cases faster than an ordinary attorney. So the client sacrifices a higher settlement in favor of a quicker settlement.

Before you hire (“retain”) a lawyer, you should always ask the lawyer whether he or she offers a free initial consultation at which you can find out more about the lawyer, whether the lawyer thinks you have a legal leg to stand on, a ballpark figure as to what you’re looking at in legal fees, whether you feel comfortable talking with the lawyer, and whether the lawyer appears competent to handle your legal problem. This free initial consultation should last about 20 to 30 minutes. If, at the end of the initial consultation, you feel that the lawyer will adequately represent you or give you sound advice, then you can sign a “retainer contract” with the lawyer spelling out the lawyer’s fees, duties, and services that the lawyer plans to provide. On the other hand, if you don’t hit it off with the lawyer or don’t think the lawyer understands your legal situation well enough to provide you with good sound legal advice, after the free initial consultation you are free to walk away, no strings attached.

Questions you should ask your prospective lawyer include:

• What law school did the lawyer graduate from?
• Did the lawyer pass the Bar exam on the first attempt?
• How long has the lawyer been practicing the area of law in question?
• What professional associations does the lawyer belong to?
• How does the lawyer keep up with recent developments?
• How will the lawyer keep you up to date with the developments in your legal situation?
• Will the lawyer promptly return telephone calls or e-mails?
• Does the lawyer have enough time to devote to your case, or is he or she going to put your situation on the “back burners”?

HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU PAY IN ATTORNEY’S FEES?

Who pays the lawyer’s fees? In most cases, you are responsible for paying your own attorney. However, the parties to a contract can agree that, if a lawsuit is filed, the party who prevails (that is, the party that wins) can recover his or her reasonable attorney’s fees from the other party. Such a provision is found in many leases. This type of provision should be in writing and signed by both parties. You can also recover your attorney’s fees in certain actions based upon a violation of your civil rights.

The amount of the fee that the lawyer will charge you depends on the type of case or legal situation you’re in and whether it involves a novel topic or is essentially a run-of-the mill legal case that the attorney has seen tens or hundreds of times. If it’s the type of case the attorney regularly handles and your case is straightforward and doesn’t involve any unusual twists or issues, the attorney’s fees will be lower than if your case involves new questions of law that will require the lawyer to conduct hours of legal research and consult with experts in the field.
There are several types of fees that lawyers charge:

• An hourly rate
• A flat fee
• A fee set by statute
• A “contingency fee”

If you retain a lawyer on an hourly rate, then the lawyer charges a fee based on every hour or part thereof that he or she spends working on your case. In addition to direct consultations and advice to you, the lawyer will bill you for his or her time reading all of the papers relevant to your situation, time spent researching the legal issues, and time spent preparing and appearing at court for motions. Most lawyers charge for time spent on the phone talking with you or others about your case. Generally, the lawyer has a set minimum fee for telephone calls based on their length. For instance, the lawyer may bill in five-minute increments for phone calls, while some lawyers may have a 15-minute minimum charge for telephone consultations, even if the phone call lasted only, say, six or seven minutes.

In addition to the lawyer’s hourly fee, you may be required to pay for expenses associated with your legal problem, such as a per page fee for every document that was copied by his or her paralegal, legal assistant, or legal secretary. You may also be billed for mailing costs. If it is necessary for the lawyer to appear in court for you, the lawyer will bill round-trip travel time between his or her office and the court at his or her hourly rate. Although your hearing before a judge, magistrate, or commissioner may take only ten to fifteen minutes, you will be billed for all of the time the lawyer was waiting in the courtroom for your case to be called. Some unethical lawyers will schedule four hearings for the same morning and charge each client the full travel fee. So if it takes them an hour for the attorney to drive to and back from the court, the unethical lawyer will charge each of the four clients the full amount of travel time. In a case such as this, the ethical thing to do is to have the attorney split the costs of travel time equally among the four clients.

A “flat fee” or “project fee” may be charged by the attorney in routine matters. For example, if you ask a business lawyer to prepare a corporation for you, and the matter is straightforward, the lawyer may charge a flat fee for his or her services. You will, however, still be financially responsible for paying the fees to file the documents with the Secretary of State and a corporate kit consisting of a special binder to hold the corporation’s documents of incorporation, by-laws, list of officers, minutes of meetings of the directors of the corporation, and other important corporation-related documents.

Sometimes the fees a lawyer can charge you in particular situations are set by law (“statute”). The most commonly encountered situation involving fees set by law are probate cases. The attorney’s fees are basically set as an amount of the estate. As the size and value of the estate increases, the lawyer’s fees decrease. Note that the fees set by law are usually the maximum fee the lawyer can charge. You have the right to negotiate a lower fee, although the lawyer will rarely agree to the reduction.

In probate cases, the lawyer for the executor of the estate, in addition to receiving the statutorily set fees, may ask the court for higher fees based on the fact that the lawyer had to do “extraordinary services” that justify an increase of the attorney’s fees. For instance, if the lawyer had to fight a will contest on behalf of the Executor, the court will most likely award the lawyer a higher amount of fees than if everything went as usual in the typical probate case.

“Contingent fees,” in which the lawyer receives a percentage of the settlement or jury award, are found in most personal injury and wrongful death cases, but can also apply to some other cases, such as collection actions. In personal injury cases, the amount of the percent generally changes the longer the case goes on. For instance, many lawyers charge 25% of the award if the case is settled without having to file a complaint, 33% if a complaint is filed but before a trial date is assigned, and 40 – 50% of any settlement after the first trial date is set. In addition to paying the lawyer his or her share, the victim must also pay for any and all expert witnesses involved in the case, such as medical doctors, experts in accident reconstruction, and forensic accountants to testify on the amount of lost wages in the future due to your disability. In collection cases, the lawyer may take the case on a contingency fee basis and receive a percentage of the delinquent debt the lawyer can obtain for his or her client. In Social Security Disability cases, the lawyer may work on a contingent fee basis and take a portion of your benefits.