The Expert Podcast

It's frustrating, isn't it? You have a case, you have some problem that you need some legal advice or legal assistance with, and you just figure it's a matter of calling up a lawyer and having them take your case. It's probably come to where you've talked to dozens of attorneys and are having a tough time getting one to even talk to you or take your case. Why is that? What can you do about it, and how can you get your legal issue resolved? Maybe it's a lawsuit against another person. Maybe it's a judgment that you have against somebody. Maybe it's some type of employment issue. Right? In some cases, there's a dispute between you and another party. You would think that attorneys want to take your case, because they billable hours—they charge you by the hour. The more money, the better, right? Like any other company, you walk in, you want to pay money, they take your money. The problem is attorneys and the legal profession is a little bit different, and it doesn't work exactly like just taking on more cases. Attorneys are very selective on the cases they take.

Behind the scenes, attorneys have probably more cases than they are able to take on, and the legal work that they do can only fit into so many hours. So, let’s say a law firm has or an attorney has 40 or 50 hours to work with during the week. They want to allocate their time very efficiently. They’re going to spend some time in court, but court time is actually very inefficient because, first of all, you have to travel to the court—that might take an hour. You have to usually wait for your hearing to be called; that takes an hour. There may be some administrative things you have to do before and after the hearing that might take an hour, and you might actually present your motion or plead your case—not so much a full case, but your motion or pleading—in maybe 15 or 20 minutes. So, it’s going to take 3 or 4 hours of that attorney’s time just to present a 15-minute motion. So, what the attorney wants to do is get the best bang for the buck for their client, which is to only work on things that are actually helping the client. So, when they see cases that actually have a lot of time wasted on things that aren’t going to help the client, they’re going to try to avoid that case. They're also going to want to deal with clients that have a very specific pursuit of their case. If you've done some research, some documentation, maybe you've had an investigation done to know exactly what you need, maybe you have evidence that's documented—not just copies of your emails or copies of your text messages from your case—you actually have documented asset searches or documented digital forensics, and you have a summary outline of what your case is.

Because, look, if you call up an attorney—even if you get one on the phone and you explain your case—you could talk for 20 or 30 minutes: “This is what happened. This guy did this, and then he didn’t call me back, and then he cashed my check." Whatever your case is about, that attorney is going to sit there on the phone for 30 minutes. At the end of that time, you might feel like you explained your case to them, but that's just coming from your mind. It's not like watching a movie and knowing the full story. Your narration is only the parts that you're thinking of telling the attorney. They're not going to want to hear it because, even at the end of that, they won’t have any idea what you’re talking about. There's more to your case than just what you can describe verbally over the phone. You need to get them a very concise outline of your case—specifically what you want. The other question is: what do you want? Do you want to sue somebody and win? Do you want to get recovery of a judgment? Do you want to get a motion handled? Whatever you want, you have to be very specific with the attorney. And that’s where they stop engaging with a customer or client that doesn’t know exactly what they want and how they want to get it. They’ll help you as long as you're not just dumping a problem in their lap and saying, "You figure it out."

The reality of dealing with an attorney is it’s not like when you go to a dealership to buy a car. You give money, and you get a car; it’s very transactional. When you pay for an attorney, you're paying for an attorney to try to do something for you. It may not always work out the way you want. Any case, if it goes to trial, can be decided in favor of either party—at best, it’s 50/50. So, when you go to trial or go to a case with another party, there’s two parties in a case. At the end of the case, the judge or jury is going to decide: you win or you lose. So, it’s 50/50. Attorneys know this, and they know that if you lose and you’ve paid tens of thousands of dollars to an attorney, you're not going to be happy. The last thing they want to do in life is have to deal with unhappy customers. They’ll try, but they want to take cases that seem like they’re going to be successful, and the reason that cases seem like they’re successful is, number one, the evidence that they can see clearly—not just you verbally on the phone, kind of hot air talking to them. They also want to know that you’re organized with your thoughts—specifically what you want, not just rambling, distraught, distressed, trying to dump a problem on them. Because now they’re not just being an attorney, they’re handling the details of that struggle for you.

The last thing is: what kind of client are you going to be to work with? You might think, "I’ll be a great client." Well, the definition of a great client is two different things: Let the attorney be the expert and do what they want. Ask you for stuff or constantly bombard them with requests? Look, I’m not saying this is right or wrong. I’m telling you what it’s like to live in their world. We’re not attorneys, and we’re not giving legal advice, but much of the work that we do as an investigative agency or for attorneys, we talk to them all the time and ask them, you know, "What is their world like?" Most attorneys actually don’t like being an attorney. It’s a very stressful job. You have to deal with people in conflict, and whoever their client is, is desperate for some result. All the other things they’ve tried haven’t worked, or maybe they haven’t tried anything else, and they just want to jump right to a lawsuit. That’s another problem for attorneys. If you haven’t done things like mediation or negotiation or settlement and tried everything you can, that means you're just dumping everything on them, and they don’t want to be in that position either.

Attorneys take less than 10% of the cases they get inquiries for. Some take less than 5%, depending on the firm. You also have to make sure you're dealing with a firm that has the right practice area. A practice area is the type of law they deal with—like some attorneys are divorce attorneys, corporate attorneys, patent attorneys, real estate attorneys, criminal defense attorneys. If you look on their website, there's usually a link that says “practice areas,” and it’ll tell you what they do. Some firms do more than one thing—that’s fine. But you want to make sure you're contacting the right kind of attorney for your case.

There’s a way to do that, too. Sometimes a case may not seem like it fits into a certain practice area. Like, if you had a problem with a vehicle purchase from a car dealership, there's no "car dealership" attorneys. There are attorneys that do civil contract law. First, make sure your case is in order. Make sure you’ve looked at mediation or at least you're acceptable to mediation because most attorneys want to at least have you do that first. Because if you're not willing to at least do that, it says you might be unreasonable, and you just want your pound of flesh, your day in court.

The other thing is to be organized with your thoughts and your case. And last, make sure you have some written evidence about your case—not just your verbal description of what happened. Have something concise you can present to them. If you do those things, you can increase your probability of getting an attorney to take your case from 3 or 4% to 60 or 70%. Attorneys love when they have a prepared, organized, thoughtful, objective, logical client. I know it’s hard to do when you're in the middle of some type of dispute with another party. It’s hard to be logical. It’s hard to be rational, right? Another party is harming you. But use the tools you have available to you.

Don’t just look at it like you're buying a cell phone at the mobile store, right? You walk into the cell phone store, and people are falling all over themselves to help you buy a new phone, right? Because they want to sell you a phone. Right? They don’t want to sit around doing nothing all day. They get paid commission. Attorneys are not like buying a car. They’re very selective. You have to kind of like Studio 54—to be let in the door, get past the doorman. A lot of times, that’s a receptionist. It may be their online portal system. So, put your best foot forward.

If you want some suggestions on that, you can reach our website—you’ll see that below—and maybe even do a consultation with one of our mediative experts to tell you how to start getting the most from your case. You want to start off the right way, whether you're hiring an attorney or investigating your own situation. Be proactive, not reactive, and get organized with your case.