WHEN SHOULD I SEE A LAWYER?
You've been hurt in a car accident. It's time to draw up a will. The buyer of your home is suggesting some creative financing. A family member has been arrested.
You need a lawyer. The question is, how do you find the right lawyer for your needs? And, once you do, how can you figure out what it might cost?
This pamphlet is not intended to address every situation or legal question that may arise, but to give some guidance in getting the right legal help when you need it.
Often we turn to lawyers as a last resortafter the contract has been signed, or the spouse has walked out or a creditor is threatening.
The adage, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," is as true with legal matters as it is with regular medical checkups.
Good legal advice is one of the greatest preventative measures a lawyer can provide. Not only can it save you money in the long run, it can also save you from unpleasant difficulties later.
Situations in which you should consider consulting a lawyer include:
- Before buying or selling real estate
- Before signing a contract with major financial provisions
- Before making a will or planning your estate
- Before organizing a business
- Whenever you are arrested or charged with a crime
- When you are involved in an accident in which there is significant damage to persons or property
- When there are changes in your family statusmarriage, adoption, divorce
- When you have tax problems or questions
- When a lawsuit is brought against you, or you want to bring a lawsuit against someone
HOW DO I FIND A LAWYER?
Florida has more than 54,000 licensed lawyers practicing in the state. The phone book lists page after page of lawyers' names. How do you know which one is right for you?
Make a careful search for your lawyerit's an important decision. Your goal should be to find a lawyer you are comfortable with as a person and as a professional. Many legal matters involve personal considerations and your lawyer often will need to know confidential information about you, your family and your finances to be truly effective in serving you.
In your preliminary research, you should focus on compiling a list of the names of lawyers who may be qualified to handle your case. Your "follow-up" research will include making phone calls to those lawyers' officesthen visiting one or a fewto find the attorney you want to handle your case.
To begin, consider a lawyer's reputation. Have you heard people speak highly of a particular attorney's talents or work? Think about your acquaintances who are, or may know, lawyers. Ask those who work with attorneys in their profession, or someone whose opinion you respectan employer, lawyer at your workplace, banker, teacher, minister, doctor or other professional, relative, neighbor or other friend.
The best recommendations often come from people who hired a lawyer to successfully resolve a problem similar to yours.
A new and growing development in Florida and other states are prepaid legal services plans. Through a prepaid legal program an individual or group pays a premiumsomething like health insuranceto receive such services as free consultations and advice, with prescribed fees for follow-up services. Before hiring an attorneyor before you even think you might need oneyou should check to see if your employer, union or other organization of which you are a member offers a prepaid legal service plan as a benefit.
Many local bar groups in Florida sponsor lawyer referral services, listed under "attorney" or "attorney referral services" in the yellow pages of the telephone book. These services can set up an initial appointment for you with a lawyer for a nominal fee (usually less than $30).
If there is no lawyer referral service in your city, The Florida Bar's statewide service can locate a lawyer for you. You can call this service toll free at 1-800-342-8011. The statewide service, which operates only in cities where there is no local program, will refer you to an attorney for an initial half-hour consultation for $15.
A relatively new method for helping people find attorneys are commercial lawyer referral services, which usually pool lawyers' marketing resources to advertise a central toll-free number. When potential clients call, they are referred to one of the attorneys who has signed up for the service.
Most areas in Florida also have legal aid and public defender offices which provide legal help without cost, or at a nominal fee to persons who cannot afford to pay a lawyer. Legal aid offices provide advice in some non-criminal cases such as those relating to: small money claims for wages; disputes between borrowers and lenders; landlord-tenant problems; and domestic relations matters. Public defender offices handle criminal cases for indigent persons.
A potential client can also use regional, state or national directories of lawyers and law firms, some containing detailed biographical information and client listings. These volumessome specially produced for consumer education, and others used by lawyers to identify attorneys in other localitiescan often be found in public libraries.
Lists of recommended attorneys are also circulated within special interest groups. If you are a member of such a group, ask if they have such a roster.
Aside from this information, some lawyers are now using consumer advertisingon radio and television, and in newspapers, magazines and other mediato inform the public of their services and charges for certain routine legal matters.
In 1982, the Florida Supreme Court adopted a certification program through which Florida lawyers can qualify by examination in civil trial practice, taxation, marital & family, estate & probate, real estate, workers' compensation, criminal trial and criminal appeals law. A lawyer certified in one of these fields is a recognized practitioner, considered to have advanced knowledge and skills in that particular field of law.
TYPES OF LAWYERS
Attorneys who practice law in Florida have undergone extensive character and fitness checks and a rigorous examination.
Some lawyers operate this law business by themselves, while others are in law firms with various numbers of attorneys. They may have a general practice, handling a variety of legal problems, or concentrate their knowledge and skills in one or more specific areas of the law, such as personal injury, real estate, commercial or tax law.
Some lawyers operate legal clinicsmany conveniently located in shopping areas or within national chain storeswhere you can get help with relatively simple matters such as an uncontested divorce or a routine will. They often can charge less by working on a volume basis using simple forms and focusing on routine but important services.
I HAVE ATTORNEYS' NAMES, NOW WHAT?
Once you have a list of one or more lawyers, call their offices. Briefly explain your situation and ask:
- If the lawyer has experience with your kind of problem
- If the lawyer charges for an initial interview and, if so, how much?
- If your problem is routine, does the attorney have a standard fee? What does it cover?
- If your problem appears more complicated, ask about hourly fees.
- Does the lawyer have a written agreement describing fees and services provided for the fees?
Write down the information and compare the answers you receive. Then, call back for an appointment to interview the attorney or attorneys whose answers satisfied you the most. Most of these "initial consultations" are free or provided at a nominal cost.
Go to the first interview with an open mind. You don't have to decide to employ the lawyer you are interviewing until you have had time to think about it.
Be organized when you first meet with the lawyer. It is important to have with you a written summary or detailed notes outlining your problem; the names, addresses and phone numbers of all parties and witnesses and their lawyers and insurance companies if you know them; and all documents which may relate to your case such as receipts, contracts, medical bills, repair estimates, checks, etc. Some lawyers may ask you to deliver photocopies of written materials in advance of your first interview so the lawyer can review them in advance.
Ask questions. Write them down before you visit the lawyer's office. Here are a few that may be helpful:
- Have you had experience with this type of problem before? How recently? How often? What was involved?
- What percentage of your practice is devoted to this kind of problem?
- Will you actually be working on my case? In what way? Will any other persons be doing work on my case? What will they do? How will it affect my fee or relations with you?
- Will you talk to me in plain English when I do not understand "legalese"?
- Will you provide me copies of all documents and letters received or written in my case? Will you treat this as an out-of-pocket expense or will you want me to pay for it in advance? Will you allow me access to my case file at your office?
- Will you keep me informed about all developments in my case? For important things, will you allow me to make the final decision?
- Will you send monthly billing statements?
- Are you willing to submit any fee disputes to binding arbitration?
One way to judge a lawyer's competence is by the amount of time he or she devotes to keeping up with changes in the law through continuing legal education. Ask questions to see if the lawyer you're thinking of hiring keeps up with changing laws.
Remember: When you hire a lawyer, the lawyer will be working for you. He or she should be genuinely interested in your problem and in giving you the best possible advice. The lawyer may not be able to accomplish everything you wish because of the facts or the law that apply in your case. Many times a good lawyer will advise you to avoid court action. A lawyer should be able to explain, in terms you can understand, what he or she hopes to accomplish for you and how he or she plans to do it.
Think about how the lawyer responded to your questions, his or her experience and whether you will be able to work with the lawyer.
If you are satisfied with the interview so far, tell the lawyer everything about your problem, including facts which may be unfavorable or embarrassing to you. Unless you are completely candid, the lawyer will be unable to advise you properly.
Strict rules prohibit the lawyer from repeating to anyone what you say, unless you admit any ongoing or planned criminal activity.
Next, you may want to ask the lawyer questions such as:
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of my case?
- What would you advise me to do about my situation?
- Can a timetable be set for my case?
- If I hire you, what will you be doing for me, and when and how will we get back in touch with each other?
- Is there a statute of limitations, or legal deadline in my case that we must be careful not to miss?
WHAT ABOUT THE FEE?
Discuss fees frankly with the lawyer, preferably at your first meeting.
Often, a lawyer cannot tell you exactly what the charge will be because it is difficult to estimate how much work is going to be involved. But lawyers can usually estimate the minimum and maximum limits of the fee for that particular work, or give you some idea of the problems involved and the time that will be required.
The timetable for paying legal fees depends on arrangements between the lawyer and client. Usually, lawyers require an advance payment, often called a retainer, to cover the initial work and court costs to be paid on your behalf. In other matters, you will be billed at the end of the month, or at the completion of the service, for services and disbursements. Be sure to discuss your plans for payment with the attorney when you discuss the fee.
A lawyer usually makes only a nominal charge, if any, for your first office visit. Only when actual time is spent working on a matter do lawyers charge a fee. Then charges are usually influenced by the time and work involved, the difficulty of the problem, the dollar amount involved, the result, and the lawyer's experience.
In some cases, your lawyer may take the case on a contingent fee basis. This means that if your suit is successful, the lawyer receives a percentage of the amount recovered for you, plus out-of-pocket expenses for filing fees, reports and the like. If it is not successful, he or she receives only these expenses.
As with any other business relationship, fees and costs are important matters that can breed future problems if there are misunderstandings. Provisions for binding arbitration may be included in your Fee Agreement. A WRITTEN FEE AGREEMENT IS ALWAYS ADVISABLE.
WHAT IF I AM NOT PLEASED WITH MY LAWYER?
If you aren't happy with the way the attorney you've hired is handling your case, you have the right to dismiss him or her and find another. You will probably be responsible for paying for time and costs associated with your case to that point, so it's not a step to be taken lightly. That's also why it's important to read and understand any contract for services you may have signed with an attorney to understand what your financial responsibilities are if you decide to take your case elsewhere.
Once your case has progressed to the point where the attorney has appeared on your behalf, a judge usually must approve a decision to take an attorney off a case.
Many times, a client's problem with an attorney is a communications problem. If this is so, you should certainly let your attorney know of your displeasure and see if a solution can be reached before firing the attorney or making any formal complaint.
If you feel an attorney has not acted properly or ethically in your case, you have the right to file a complaint against that attorney with The Florida Bar. The Bar, under the direction of the Supreme Court of Florida, is charged with prosecuting unethical attorneys. For more information about the complaint process, call the Bar office in your area (Tallahassee, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami and Orlando) or Bar headquarters at (850)561-5600.
If you feel that an attorney has billed you improperly for services performed or has failed to refund an unearned portion of an advance payment, you may request that the dispute be submitted to arbitration. The Florida Bar maintains a statewide Fee Arbitration Program to assist in resolving fee disputes without the necessity of litigation.
For additional information regarding the statewide Fee Arbitration Program contact the Fee Arbitration Coordinator, The Florida Bar, 650 Apalachee Parkway, Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2300 or phone (850) 561-5600.
The material in this pamphlet represents general legal advice. Since the law is continually changing, some provisions in this pamphlet may be out of date. It is always best to consult an attorney about your legal rights and responsibilities regarding your particular case.
Revised 12/98