The Expert Podcast

If you've had difficulty trying to find an attorney, this article might confuse you, where law firms are now preparing for a slowdown after record demand. You might think, "Well, record demand makes sense; that's why I haven't been able to find an attorney." But here's the thing: it's not so much that the attorneys were too busy; it's that they didn't have as many good cases. Attorneys are very selective about the cases that they take.

You might think, "Well, I'm trying to buy a service for somebody, like if I call a roofer or a plumbing company, they should want to take my money." The same with an attorney—if I call them up and I want to give them a retainer, why aren't they calling me back? Well, attorneys aren't necessarily looking for just any cases. They want cases that are, first of all, financially viable, and second of all, match their practice areas. Just because somebody is a lawyer doesn't mean they do every kind of case. Obviously, we all know that there are things like divorce lawyers, corporate lawyers, bankruptcy lawyers, or personal injury lawyers, and they don't necessarily do other types of cases. Nor do you want them to. If you have a really good tax attorney, you don't want them representing you in a criminal defense case, right? Because they may not keep you out of jail.

So, attorneys have certain practice areas. Even within their practice area, the case has to make sense. By "make sense," it's not necessarily about how much money they can bill; it's about whether the case will cost them more in time than what they're going to obtain from the customer. Obviously, billable hours are part of it, but certain billable hours are less profitable. If you're billing out at $300 or $400 an hour and all the hours of that case are in court doing litigation, the attorney might not make any money. They have to spend two or three hours getting to court, two for favors, getting back. The court time puts you out of reach of your firm; you're not going to be able to do other things. So if it's all litigation and you're at your same hourly rate, many attorneys don't want that kind of case. They want to have a good balance of litigation, research, depositions, interrogatories, and other types of work within the case.

So, if you're a potential client, how do you make sure that you get a good attorney and get them to call you back? First of all, make sure that you present yourself as not a high-maintenance client. Many times, attorneys have clients that call for updates on their cases three times a day. Certainly, they're going to bill you for that time on the phone, but it doesn't change the fact that it's an interruption to them actually working on your case or somebody else's case. You also want to make sure that you have reasonable expectations about your case. Even if you're willing to pay the money for a retainer and attorney's fees, if you are just under the impression that you're automatically going to win no matter what and you don't have to do any work, an attorney may not want that case.

As we've seen in many high-profile public cases, one side wins, and one side loses. In every single legal case, the side that loses had the same belief that they were going to win as the side that prevailed. So, you have about a 50/50 chance of winning your case. Now, obviously, some cases are more advantageous than others, but remember, your point of view is only coming from the perspective of your position on the case. If an attorney gets a sense that you're just getting into it with the presumption that you're 100% guaranteed to win, and you don't have reasonable expectations where you have to contribute effort and provide information and work towards that case, it's like a football game.

You see two football teams come on the field every Sunday; they both want to win. They both believe they're going to win, but only one walks away victorious. If one team walks on the field just thinking automatically, "I'm going to win," they're not going to try as hard. So, attorneys want a client that's going to work with them on the case to help them be strategic and win but also not take a bad case and put a failure on the attorney.

Again, we're not trying to defend attorneys; we're not attorneys, and we're not giving you legal advice. But as an investigative agency, we work with attorneys on a daily basis. We know what they're facing, and we know what clients are facing in trying to work with attorneys. What we're trying to do is bridge that gap and get those two groups of people to work together more easily because most cases can be won if the right strategy is deployed.

In fact, let's go back to the example of 50/50. It's not actually a 50/50 flip of a coin; it's whoever plays the case better. In the same way that a football game is won by whatever team executes better, a court case is won by whoever executes better. I'm sure we've seen many high-profile cases like the ones you see on TV—think OJ, think Casey Anthony. These are criminal cases, and many people believe that the outcome of the case wasn't what it was supposed to be. It's because one side was very strategic, and that was both the client and the attorney. The client and attorney have to work together. Then, you have to have good strategy and, many times, investigations behind it to give you the power you need to win your case.

So, if you are a high-quality plaintiff or party to a case, you engage properly with your attorney, let them take the lead, give them the information they need, and you have a good chance of winning your case—even if you're not supposed to. Many times, cases are won by parties that technically didn't have a leg to stand on. You've seen it. You've seen it in the news, allegedly.

So, if you're trying to work with an attorney, make sure that you look at it not like you're a consumer just buying a can of beans off the shelf. The attorney is a business partner in a project, and they have nothing to lose because they're going to get their fees no matter what. You have everything to lose because the disposition of that case can affect you. So, look for a partner that you can work with. It's going to be your advocate, someone who will work for you, but that you know you're also going to support and enlist their support. Let them take the lead because they're the expert in that arena.

You may do some research, and you may want to help them, but you have to let them take the lead. You can ask questions, and you can want to know how they're running the case, but the attorney is your best advocate. That's why choosing one is the most important thing. Don't just pick somebody out of the phone book and throw a dart at the wall to add a name. You want to make sure that you talk to 8 or 9 or 10 different firms before you hire an attorney. Don't just hire the first one you find or the first one that comes up on Google. Talk to 10 attorneys. You might have to contact 20 to get 10 that will talk to you. Even if you have to pay to talk to some of them—give an hour’s retainer fee for a consultation, some of them will do it for free, some will make you pay. Talk to 10; it's kind of like taking a serious relationship, like dating. You want to interview the people and find out where they're going to be advocates for you, where they're going to be good partners for you. Same thing with a law firm. Talk to 10 to narrow down to 3 to hire one.