The Expert Podcast

So why is it so hard to hire an attorney and what can you do to make that process easier? Hiring an attorney you might think is like hiring any other business. If you want to, let's say, hire somebody to fix your roof, you call a roofing company, you say, "I want to pay you money," and they come fix your roof. Attorneys deal with clients a little bit differently. What happens is law firms are very selective about their cases, and here's why.

If you hire somebody to fix your roof, they know they can fix your roof. They fix roofs for a living, and they know that the end result is going to be a fixed roof. An attorney doesn't know if the end result is going to be a success for you. You can't hire an attorney and say, "I want you to win my case," because they don't know if the case is going to be one. They don't know if your case is valid. They don't know if it's any good. They don't even know if you have a case. Even if you do have a case, you could still lose. You've seen many court cases in the news that you believed 100% this person should be guilty, and they get off. This person should be innocent, and they get convicted. Lawsuits, this person should win, and they lose.

So attorneys don't like to work on cases that they feel like they're going to take your money and at the end of that case, there's a chance that you're not going to win and you're going to be disappointed. They don't want to be in that position. They don't want to put you in that position, so they're very selective about what cases they take. It's not about the money. They have plenty of cases they can take; there's plenty of money that they could take for a retainer and billable hours.

So they have to select the cases that fit three criteria. First of all, it fits what's called their practice area. Practice area is the type of law they work on. So if an attorney is, let's say, a criminal defense attorney, they defend people that have been arrested. They're not going to take a case for a corporate law. Let's say they're a divorce family law attorney; they're not going to take a criminal case. Civil litigation that does lawsuits, they're not going to take maybe a bankruptcy case. So every attorney has practice areas. They don't necessarily have to have one; they can have two or three different practice areas. Many times law firms, you know, companies that are larger that have more than one attorney, cover a wide array of practice areas. But your case has to fit into their practice area.

And we'll talk about how to find an attorney that matches all of these three categories. Second of all, they want to make sure you, as a client, match their type of client. They like to work with some, uh, law firms like to work with corporate clients, some like to work with consumers, some are more selective on the type of vibe or personality of the client. One of the things that's very common for law firms to do is to filter out clients that seem like they're going to be very difficult to deal with. And what is their indicator red flag? If the first time you talk to them or email them, you dump your whole case on them. If you send them an email that's, you know, four paragraphs long that describes your entire case, they're going to think, like, this person doesn't have really, like, the social skills to be able to deal with somebody. It's kind of like if you walked into a room with strangers you didn't know and told your whole life story before you got to know them and before you got permission to have that conversation.

So don't dump your whole case on them in the first conversation or even the second conversation. They also like to feel like you're letting them ask you the important questions, not every detail you know about your case is going to be needed by that attorney. Especially at the beginning, they're going to need certain information but not every last detail. And if you spend 20-30 minutes describing your whole case, you're wasting their time and yours, talking about things that aren't important. And if you don't let them ask the important questions, they're going to feel like, you know, it's going to be too hard to communicate with this client, so let's just pass.

The third thing is what we talked about at the beginning: What is the chances probability that you're going to win your case, right? They want to work on winning cases, not losing cases. Now, there's no guarantee obviously you're going to win any case, but they want to see that the probability is there that, a, you know, you have a good case and what you're saying would prevail; number two, that even if you have, you're in the right and you should prevail, that the reality of that case is that it's going to win because you have the evidence. And, you know, some cases can be won if you spend too much money on them to get evidence and expert witnesses, and they don't want to take a case that's going to cost more to win it than you would gain. So they're going to do some evaluation; it's not always going to be right, but they're going to do some quick evaluation because, like I said, they can't take every case, and they have to do a quick analysis of what cases they should be taking that'll best help the client and also help them. Again, it's not always about the billable hours because they have plenty of hours to bill, plenty of clients out there. It's about making sure that it's a comfortable relationship for them, the case has a high probability of winning, and it's not going to be too overbearing on all the parties.

So how do you circle back around? How do you find an attorney that's best suited for your case? The way we recommend doing it is starting with, of all things, you've heard us talk about it before, Google. Google Maps. Go on Google Maps on your computer; try not to do it on a phone; it's too small of a screen. On your computer, put a pin on your address where you live and zoom out about 20 or 30 miles depending on how big your town is and then type in "law firm." Now, if you know what kind of case it is, like civil litigation, divorce, family law, criminal, you can put that in. "Law firm criminal defense," "law firm civil litigation," hit enter, and you'll see all these little pins will pop up, little dots will pop up on your screen of law firms that Google thinks cover that type of case.

And what you're going to do is you're going to select 14 of those law firms. 14 of those law firms. You're going to click on it. All you're going to do is get their website. Forget their phone number. Forget their email. Don't try to call them. Just copy their website into a spreadsheet, a document, write it down, I don't care what you do. Get 14 of them, 14 law firms. And then what you're going to do is you're going to go to each one of those websites and first make sure they do actually cover that practice area because Google might think that they're a criminal defense attorney, but they might have it wrong. So look in their website at the very top of the menu, there will be a link that says "practice areas." Right? So click on that link that says "practice areas" and just make sure the kind of case you have matches their practice areas. And then of that 14, if you still have 14, go for it. If you need to replace them with a couple more from the map, make sure you have 14 that cover your practice area.

Then what? Don't call them. Don't email them. Well, you can maybe email them, but don't call them or don't go in person. Type four sentences in an email on a spreadsheet and a note that you can cut and paste to send to all 14. What are those sentences? The sentences are, "I have a case involving [blank]," no more than four words, "a dispute with a neighbor," "I have a case that involves a criminal arrest," "I have a case that involves a lawsuit against a business." That's it. Don't say anything more about your case than four words. "What is the best way to talk to you about this case?" That's it. You're just asking for permission to talk to them about your case and you're saying a little bit about it. The only thing saying more about your case can do is make them give a reason not to take it. If you only put a little bit, now they have to have some curiosity to talk to you more. If you tell them about your case, there might be one thing in there that says, "We don't want this case," so don't say anything. Just say the basics of what kind of case it is and what's the best way to talk about this case with you. Send that same message to all 14.

Now, we recommend not doing it by email. We recommend using, on that law firm website, using their form. All websites now have a form for submitting a lead. Usually, it says something like "contact us" or "send us your information." Put your name, put your email, put your phone number, put those four sentences in the notes/comments, hit enter, and send it to all 14. And then sit back. And you might think, "Well, is 14 too many?" Guess what, you're going to get back probably six replies out of 14. Six replies out of 14. Why is that? Most law firms don't do a very good job of keeping their websites up to date, so they're not going to get back to you. Some law firms are so busy that they just don't have time. Some law firms might not be interested. Some law firms might not want to reply to you. But if you send it to 14, you're going to get six replies. And out of those six replies, you're going to get a feel for whether you want to talk to them or not. If you get any replies back that say, "This isn't a case that we cover," that's great. That's better than no reply. That's telling you, "Don't waste your time with us."

So now you have, let's say, six replies, you can start calling them or emailing them, or even going into their office to talk to them. The most important thing to remember is you have to get a feel for whether they want to take your case or not, because you don't want to be a difficult client, but you want to make sure that they understand your case well enough. You want to ask them, "Do you think this is a case that's worth pursuing? Do you think we have a chance of winning this case?" and also, "How do you think we should handle it?" If you can get a few law firms that are interested, you should be able to pick the one that you're most comfortable with. And that's how you hire an attorney.