Choosing A Lawyer
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From time to time, something occurs which causes me to reflect
yet again on the curiously inappropriate and inadequate methods
(if you could call them methods) by which many Americans select
their legal advisors. Even people whose education, economic
position and personal achievements would suggest a pretty high
degree of worldliness, display a near-total ignorance of how
to properly perform this crucially important task.
On the chance that you, too, might profit from a refresher on
this subject, I am going to set down some thoughts for your
consideration. Let me suggest to you that the search process
should have a number of separate stages.
1. Defining the Problem.
First, a possible threshold issue may be that you do not know
how to describe or characterize your legal problem, or at
least do not trust yourself to do it accurately.
I acknowledge that this can present difficulties for some people
in some circumstances --- the less sophisticated or analytical
the person and/or the more arcane or multi-faceted the problem
the greater the likelihood that this problem will arise.
I know of no universally good cure for this condition but one
possible solution would be to approach an experienced lawyer
who is engaged in a general (as opposed to specialized) practice,
describe your concern(s) or problem(s) in detail and ask him to
set down for you, preferably in writing, all of the legal
issues which he perceives and the legal specialties (using
the categories and descriptions employed by the lawyers
directories which are mentioned below) who should be consulted.
Once you have solved this definitional problem, if any, continue
as follows.
2. Search Methodology. Second,
give some thought to your physical location and to the nature
and probable complexity of the problem. The less densely
populated your area, and the more complex the subject, the
greater the likelihood that you are going to have to expand
your search radius.
If you live in Manhattan you can probably find experts on
almost any legal subject within a few miles of your doorstep;
if you live in South Succotash there may not be any lawyers,
expert or otherwise, in any convenient proximity whatsoever.
Once you have a notion of how far afield you may have to cast
your net, I would proceed in the following sequence:
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A. Examine at
least one, and possibly both, of the two leading
national lawyers directories, which are compiled
by
Martindale-Hubbell and by
West Publishing
Company. You may be able to find them at your
personal lawyers office, at your local public
library, or failing that, on the internet. There may
be other useful publications as well; the reference
librarian at your local library can probably assist
in that regard.
From these directories, you should be able to
determine the names, and something about the
professional backgrounds, of a number of lawyers
in your search area whose practices are concentrated
in the relevant specialized field(s).
B. Certain lawyers
whose names appear in these directories have been
rated as to professional competence by their peers,
and their ratings published by Martindale-Hubbell. I
believe you would find it useful to review that company's
description of its
rating methodology.
These ratings, which are not presently available on
the internet but are reflected in the print version
of the Martindale-Hubbell directory, are, I suggest,
an extremely valuable resource and you should make
whatever special effort it takes to secure this
information.
C. With this
preliminary information in hand, if you have a
personal attorney whose knowledge, judgment and
candor you respect, you might wish to seek
recommendations from that lawyer as to a suitable
advisor.
In order to obtain the greatest benefit from this
type of advice you should make it clear in advance
that you are not going to engage this attorney or
his firm for the assignment in question.
D. If you have
access to other financial professionals whose knowledge,
judgment and candor you respect, particularly (in
roughly descending order of reliability) public
accountants, trust bankers, insurance agents
and/or financial planners, you might ask for their
recommendations as well.
This can be a useful area of inquiry, but be wary
of being aggressively "steered" to a
particular selection. It is not uncommon for
lawyers and other professionals in allied fields
to have informal referral networks (what you might
benignly call mutual admiration societies), and
your respondent will, sometimes out of inertia
and sometimes out of self-interest, simply give
you the names of the lawyers he most frequently
and/or profitably works with.
E. Lastly, if you
have social or business acquaintances who you are
aware have had similar problems, you might also
ask them for their recommendations. I suggest
however, that it would be imprudent for you to
simply rely on a single such endorsement, and I put
this suggestion at the absolute bottom of the
list as I believe it is the least reliable
indicator of all.
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3. Possible Counterindications.
Contrariwise, I believe some factors which you should
clearly not take into consideration in the selection
process are (a) mere geographical convenience, (b) the
existence of a social or family or business relationship
between yourself and a prospective advisor, and (c)
memberships in the same social or community organizations,
etc.
To my way of thinking, those criteria would be virtual
counter-indications, and not positive attributes, but I
concede that others might disagree with this view.
4. Review of Credentials.
Clearly, throughout the process, you will be performing your
own critical review of the candidates' professional credentials,
such as their formal and legal education, judicial
clerkships, authorship of publications, scholarly lectures,
teaching positions, memberships in selective professional
organizations, etc.
Regarding this latter question, I suggest you take with a
grain of salt a particular candidate's belonging to some
"institute", "academy", "consortium",
"network, "college", etc. Some, but not all,
of these sorts of affiliations are partly or wholly in the
nature of marketing devices and therefore may not be in
themselves a reliable indicator of professional competence.
Step carefully in this specific regard, and, if you have
your own personal lawyer, ask him which of such memberships,
if any, should bear favorable consideration.
While I am on the subject of invidious comparisons, perhaps
I should also mention (a) that not all educational degrees
are of equal stature, (b) that lectures given to lay
audiences are not equivalent in value to those given to
lawyers or other planning professionals, and (c) that publications
issued under the auspices of continuing legal education
organizations or legal publishing houses are to be accorded
much more weight than those prepared purely for a lay
readership.
The order of the day is to discriminate. If you have
forgotten what that word truly means, take the time to
look it up, and reflect upon it.
5. Interviews. Finally,
once you have narrowed the field to two or three possibles,
you may wish to interview the remaining candidates on a
face-to-face basis, to determine the personal "chemistry"
between you and the prospective advisor. If you do not have a
fairly high degree of rapport with your advisor it will be
difficult for the two of you to develop a successful
relationship.
Please be mindful that this type of legal service is
extraordinarily intangible; it is partly composed of
technical competence but also partly of the exercise of
human judgment. The results of judgment calls may not
be known for years, even decades, after they are made,
often too late for remediation of error and invariably too
late for the timely adoption of a sounder course. To a
great degree you will be putting your family's future in
the hands of this person, and you will want to be as
comfortable as possible, on the human level, with your
choice.
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