Free Consultations: From the Horse's Mouth

The most direct option, as I alluded to yesterday, is to just get a (often free) consultation with a lawyer and talk to them. Get a few answers, ask a few questions, and see if the questions you have lead you to a place where you need to consider retaining a lawyer on a more long-term basis.

The key here is that you should listen to your common sense. The options I have presented lead you increasingly toward actual talk with people you can verify are lawyers and therefore should have some expertise. These options also lead you increasingly in the direction of actually needing/having/paying for a lawyer. If you need to go far enough to post on Avvo, follow up, and/or have a consultation, maybe you actually need a lawyer to help you. If you're just goofing around and finding things on the web, have a good time, but double- and triple-check before you take what you hear as gospel.

Asking Questions of Real Live Lawyers!

All of my previous posts in this vein have been about trying to get answers to your legal questions without actually talking to someone in person. You may find that you get better answers if you can ask more specific questions. A good way to come up with a specific question is to listen to an expert talk about the subject you're interested in, and use that information to your advantage.

Often you can find lectures on a subject that interests you by talking to local civic organizations or non-profits, who are often in touch with attorneys. In addition, towns and churches will sometimes sponsor events. Even businesses, such as financial planners, may have those resources available to you from time to time. Once you listen to these people speak, you can ask them a question, and perhaps they can give you an answer that will help.

Again, as with any of the methods I've been talking about, it's not out of the ordinary to get only half an answer to your question. I would definitely expect to hear one of these "Well, you're not a client yet...so maybe we can finish this conversation at a consultation in my office." That may not be worth it to you, but sometimes lawyers will offer such consultations for free, in which case, there's really nothing to lose. More on this subject tomorrow.

Asking Questions on Avvo: Illustration by Example

I'm going to make my point just by showing you a few things. Let me first make clear that I really like Avvo and I think sometimes it even helps people out. I also like it because they get a ton of traffic and their visibility is wonderful.

But watch this. Here is an excerpt from the terms of use on Avvo, put in very tiny print so that it doesn't take up the whole page:

9. No Attorney-Client Relationship
Information posted or made available on or through the Site, including without limitation any responses to legal questions posted on Avvo Answers, information provided in Avvo Legal Guides, and any other comments, opinions, recommendations, answers, analysis, references, referrals or legally related content or information (collectively "Legal Information") is not intended to create an attorney-client relationship between you and any attorney. Such Legal Information is intended for general informational purposes only and should be used only as a starting point for addressing your legal issues. It is not a substitute for an in-person or telephone consultation with an attorney licensed to practice in your jurisdiction about your specific legal issue, and you should not rely upon such Legal Information. You understand that questions and answers or other postings to the Site are not confidential and are not subject to attorney-client privilege. Company does not select, screen, approve, endorse or limit who can post Legal Information, including those who contribute responses to Avvo Answers and Avvo Legal Guides ("Contributors"). Designation as a Contributor at a particular level is based solely on the number of contributions made and user ratings as to helpfulness of such contributions and does not reflect any endorsement or approval by Company. In addition, although we reserve the right to review, remove or edit any content from the site, we do not routinely screen, monitor, or review the content of any such Legal Information. As a result, we have no control over and we do not warrant or guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, applicability, completeness, currency or quality of any such Legal Information or the qualifications of those posting Legal Information. AVVO SHALL HAVE NO RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY OF ANY KIND FOR ANY LEGAL INFORMATION YOU ENCOUNTER ON OR THROUGH THE SITE, AND ANY USE OR RELIANCE ON LEGAL INFORMATION IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK.
10. Disclaimers and Acknowledgements Regarding Use of Site Information
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While Company endeavors to provide and to allow others to provide useful information regarding attorneys, legal services and the law, you acknowledge that such information is reliant upon third party data and contributions, that there are certain inherent limitations to the accuracy or currency of such information, that attorney and other information may be incomplete or may contain inaccuracies (including without limitation any interpretations and reviews of such information and Site Materials, such as Avvo Ratings and Legal Information), and that information on the Site may be outdated or contain errors, omissions or misinterpretations of information. You further acknowledge that an Avvo Rating and the other information contained in an attorney's profile, such as descriptions of an attorney's areas of practice (including percentages devoted to each), and other data, summaries or descriptions on the Site, are based on the data obtained by or submitted to Company, which may be incomplete or inaccurate, and rely on automated interpretations of the information gathered by or submitted to Company. An Avvo Rating reflects the Company's assessment of a given attorney, based upon the information obtained by or submitted to Company; someone else's assessment of the same lawyer may be different or based upon different information. Neither Avvo Ratings, Legal Information nor any of the other information contained on the Site or provided through the Services, are an endorsement of any particular attorney or are a guarantee of an attorney's quality, competency, qualifications, experience, resources, character, honesty, integrity, responsiveness or other personal and professional characteristics. Nor are they a predictor of the outcome of a legal matter handled by such attorney. The information provided on this Site is intended to be a starting point to gather information about legal issues and attorneys who may be suitable for your legal needs, but you should not rely solely on such information in deciding whether to hire an attorney or how to resolve a legal matter. Furthermore, you should independently verify the accuracy of any information you obtain on the Site before using it, and you should obtain independent references for any attorneys you are considering hiring. You agree to be solely responsible for your use of the Site, the Site Materials and the Services and for determining the suitability of, and the results obtained from, any attorney you hire.
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COMPANY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ERRORS OR OMISSIONS IN ANY INFORMATION OR MATERIALS CONTAINED ON THE SITE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ATTORNEY PROFILE INFORMATION OR LEGAL INFORMATION. WHILE COMPANY ATTEMPTS TO MAKE YOUR ACCESS AND USE OF THE SITE SAFE, COMPANY CANNOT AND DOES NOT REPRESENT OR WARRANT THAT THE SITE OR ITS SERVER(S), OR ANY CONTENT OR MATERIALS ARE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS; THEREFORE, YOU SHOULD USE INDUSTRY-RECOGNIZED SOFTWARE TO DETECT AND DISINFECT VIRUSES, SPYWARE, MALWARE, AND OTHER HARMFUL OR OTHERWISE UNDESIRABLE COMPONENTS FROM ANY DOWNLOAD.
Company reserves the right to change any and all content contained in the Site and any Services offered through the Site at any time without notice. Reference to any attorneys, law firms, or other legal service providers or organizations, educational institutions, courts, associations, organizations, publications, licenses, accreditations, ratings, evaluations, endorsements, reviews, products, services, processes or other information, by name, trade name, trademark, manufacturer, supplier or otherwise does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by Company.


And yet, when you ask a question, you will often see this as a substantial portion of the answer:

LEGAL DISCLAIMER
[Attorney] is licensed to practice law in [state or states]. [Attorney's] response here is not legal advice and does not create an attorney/ client relationship. The response is in the form of legal education and is intended to provide general information about the matter in question. Many times the questioner may leave out details which would make the reply unsuitable. [Attorney] strongly advises the questioner to confer with an attorney in their own state to acquire more information about this issue.

New Domain- hopefully the end of self-promotion for awhile

Okay, the domain www.carlarcher.com is officially linked to this blog. You can now go there instead of trying to remember the blogspot URL. Back to substantive blogging tomorrow.

Posting on Free Internet Forums: Not Legal Research

The contrast between free internet forums like Yahoo! Answers and the like, or paid legal research as I mentioned in my previous post, is the dichotomy between two things: reliability and ease of use. Paid legal research is very reliable, and very hard to use. Free legal forums are very easy to use, but you're giving up the farm in terms of reliability (see also, Wikipedia).

They can be useful, but only if you know what you're looking for, you know what you're asking, and you know how to vet your answers. Since anybody can post on a forum, the only way that it's useful is if you can sort that information out (provided you get it, as many questions don't get answered on those fora). The funny thing is, of course, that once you get to the point where you can sort that information out effectively, you probably know enough about the subject where you don't need to be visiting a forum to get your answers.

Paid Legal Research: Is It Worth It?

I have written this post with the aim of answering this question for non-lawyers. If you're a solo or small law firm and you stumble upon this post, I think it's safe to say I don't know the answer to this question for you.

I feel strongly that there is no reason that you should pay for legal research if you're not a lawyer. Most legal research that you'll find is cases and caselaw, and people go to law school in part to learn how to use that material and turn it into something that makes sense to other lawyers. If you don't have that training, it's going to take you an awfully long time to figure out how to turn these cases into something intelligible. Besides, you may even find that what you need is available online. See a future post for details on that.

Now, you can spend hundreds of dollars a month on legal research if you wanted (Lexis, Westlaw, anyone?) but there are cheaper options (LoisLaw and VersusLaw can both be had for under $40/month). This is not to say that they're going to get you what you want, even at these reduced prices. If you need a brief, or something that uses legal authority to persuade a court that you're right on an issue, legal research isn't going to help you unless you know how to use it.

Searching on Google: Your Mileage May Vary

Google is different than all of the other ways you can search for legal information, because there isn't another person on the other end who is answering your questions. You have to get your "answers" from the results htat you receive, and fine-tune your search results from there.

The first thing you should is to refine what exactly your question is. If you can do so, get it into one sentence. The example I'll use is "How do I sue somebody in New Jersey?" You may have (actually, you should have) quite a longer description than that, but there's no sense in feeding Google a book.

Given those results, look and see if anything speaks to you. You won't necessarily know what you're looking for, but maybe someone has the same problem that you do (oh, they're trying to sue for a small amount of money and do it themselves, just like me!) or maybe there is a government resource on the topic (like a pro-se kit, such as provided at njcourtsonline.com).

If you find keywords that you think are relevant, but you didn't put them in your original search, re-run the search with them in there. Basically, if you find something that is a "term of art" or means a very specific thing, and that thing is relevant to you, include it in your search. A word about choice of keywords: my experience is that nouns are more often "terms of art" or good keywords, because people use verbs and adjectives more indiscriminately.

Google searching takes patience and time. You'll need to keep looking for things gradually, and I'm sure you'll find them if you keep at it. There are also other resources for the art of google searching; I'm sure that a quick search will bring them up for you. :)

But I Still Have a Question: Legal Research without a Lawyer

What if you don't think you need a lawyer, but you still have a question? Where and how can you get the answer(s) you need, and how reliable are they? There are many, many places you can turn to, and some of them might not even cost you very much. This next series of posts will address the various ways I think it might be possible to find legal research, and the reasons why you might (and might not) want to pursue them. The possibilities include:

• Google
• Paid research services, such as Lexis, Westlaw, etc.
• Free and non-legal forums (Yahoo! Answers and such sites)
• Legal-specific forums (Avvo and the like)
• In-person opportunities, including lectures and legal advice days
• "Free" consultations with attorneys

Common Sense is Not So Common

Do you want to be a great tactical knowledge source for your clients? Great. All you have to do is just keep the goal in mind, and use some common sense. Easy.

As long as you know whose goals to remember, whose perspective the "common" sense comes from, and you don't let little things like your client's life, your other clients' lives, your co-workers' lives, the bottom line, or your own life get in the way of keeping this all very clear. Oh, and make sure you can evaluate and move on these things on a moment's notice.

Yeah, easy.

Emotion is the Enemy of Good Lawyering

Emotion makes good lawyering darned near impossible. People can't by nature control their emotions. Cool, rational thought is the only way that you can make a calculated decision, either on a cost-benefit level (as a client), or a tactical level (as an attorney). When emotions get in the way, rational thought goes out the window, and people start to fight battles for the sake of fighting battles. This phenomenon goes a long way toward giving family law attorneys a bad name.

Lawyers need to be held to a higher standard. They need to keep emotion out of their dealings with clients and with the system, but they can't banish it altogether. Emotion can be very valuable if you can keep it in control- it's called compassion.

And Now for Something Completely Different: A Content-Free Post

I have registered the URL www.carllaw.com for this blog. I am in the process of moving things so that they redirect to this site. It's a lot less to type, and I think it'll be a nice site for me to use in the future. The old site URL will work, though- so don't worry!

[Edit: I have decided to reserve http://www.carlarcher.com for the blog instead. I will use www.carllaw.com for a "law firm" address if I need to, at some point in the future. Just sayin'.

How Reachable Should a Lawyer Be?

Alexi Darling: "Marky, Give Us A Call 970-4301...Or At Home Try 863-6754...Or - My Cellphone At 919-763-0090...Or - You Can Email Me...At Darling Alexi Newscom Dot Net...Or You Can Page Me At *answering machine beeps*

-from the musical "Rent"

I mean, I understand that clients need to know your office address. They want the office phone number, and maybe even a direct line. They want your office email address. But a home phone? A cell phone? (Nevermind a pager- almost nobody wears a pager nowadays.) A home email address?

They're called "office" phone numbers for a reason. Theoretically, there is supposed to be a dividing line there somewhere. If you have to give somebody eighteen different ways to contact you so that you're sure they can reach you, then it's time to rethink your communication standards, your work-life balance and style, or how important this client really is.

Avoiding Malpractice, Tip #2: Don't Sure for Unpaid Fees

Here's a little secret that comes directly off #1. Usually when people don't pay your fees, there's a reason. Maybe they can't afford it, but more likely they aren't satisfied. If you sue them for your fee, and they get "their day in court," what do you suppose they're going to do?

Countersuing for malpractice is the most common way of trying to get out of paying a fee. You may find that the accumulated aggravation, not to mention the increase in your malpractice insurance premiums, makes it not worth it to chase a fee. You probably will, actually, once it happens to you. Avoid all the aggravation by just reaching out to your clients and seeing if you can fix whatever it is that is bothering them. Maybe you can, maybe you can't, but at least you put forth the effort.

Of course, there are a couple of exceptions. If you are being sued directly for malpractice, it makes sense to tack on a counterclaim for fees. Also, if the amount in question is "big" (whatever that means in your situation) and you're willing to take the chance that there will be additional litigation, go for it and sue for fees. Just understand what it is you're getting into, and what the potential consequences are.

Just a note for litigants: this is not an invitation to skip out on paying your fees. If you don't pay, and there isn't a very good reason for it, sooner or later you will be dragged into court and a Judge will most likely throw the book at you.

Avoid Malpractice Tip #1- Be Nice and Talk to you Clients

I have nothing scientific to back this up, but I do have the experiences and stories of numerous doctors and lawyers.

If you want to avoid malpractice suits, talk to your clients. The number one complaint you hear about lawyers, especially, is that they don't return phone calls. Even if the news is bad, it is impossible to overstate how important it is that you remain in contact with your clients. They want to be able to trust you- that's your job. When you stop being trustworthy (any way that happens), you put yourself at risk.

And if you're going to take the trouble to talk to them, at least be nice about it. If a client genuinely likes their lawyer or other professional, they are not going to want to sue them because that's just not a "nice" thing to do. Whereas, if you start the mudslinging, they aren't going to hesitate to drop to that level as well. Bad news for you.

In Defense of Being a Generalist, Or How to Specialize In Customer Service

It's all the rage these days to be a specialist and to develop a frame of expertise, and then market the heck out of it. To listen to the conventional wisdom, all you need to do is find a niche, and then a subniche, and then find a hole just big enough to bury your head into, and then simply wait for fame and fortune to follow.

The problem with this approach is mainly that it doesn't work. You set up a little specialty for yourself, and unless you have a way of leveraging that specialty, you are dependent on someone else to bring you business. Even if you're good at marketing and rainmaking, you're still dependent on the market and the law. If you invested like this, your advisors would run screaming because you're putting all your eggs in one basket.

Why not "generalize?" You don't need to know everything to have a successful business. What you need are clients who like you, and enough general knowledge and savvy to be the person they go when they need a problem solved. And then enough charisma and good business sense to keep them coming back.

All you really have to do is specialize- in customer service. Be there for your clients, and make sure you show potential clients that you will be there for them. You won't have a built-in demand for your practice area, because you don't have one. You'll have to build a demand for your specialty- you, and the services you can offer. And if someone ever has a question for you, you won't have to experience that sinking feeling that says "I haven't seen this since the bar exam..."

People pay for peace of mind and security. You don't have to be a shark to give them that.

Corollary to Universal Truth #3: Lawyers may be people, too!

link to this photo: here

This one is for people who deal with lawyers. It may come as a surprise to you, but lawyers have occasionally been known to exhibit human characteristics such as compassion and happiness. If you detect these qualities in a lawyer who seems potentially human, tell your friends. It will make the lawyer happy. In any case, treat the lawyer like you would any other potential human- err on the side of humanity. They'll probably thank you for it.

Universal Truth of Self-Employment #3: First and Foremost, They’re People.

You can look at customers, clients, contacts, any way you’d like. You can build them up in your mind as being more important than they are, or more important than they think they are. You can talk down to them, treat them badly, or not even listen at all. However, the only way you can consistently get their attention and keep it is to remember one general principle:

They’re people.

At the end of the day, it might be “the Johnson account” for your business, but they see themselves as Jim and Sandy Johnson, with an eight-year-old in the talent show and an eleven-year-old on the soccer team. Jim and Sandy, with their own lives, their own mortgage to pay, and their own problems in life. They don’t see themselves as your clients, but as their own family and within their own existence.

The only way to understand yourself and the way to best deal with people is to undertake the task of understanding other people. The following paragraph was quoted in Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” and comes from Carl R. Rogers’s “On Becoming a Person.”

I have found it of enormous value when I can permit myself to understand the other person. The way in which I have worded this statement may seem strange to you, Is it necessary to permit oneself to understand another? I think it is. Our first reaction to most of the statements (which we hear from other people) is an evaluation or judgment, rather than an understanding of it. When someone expresses some feeling, attitude or belief, our tendency is almost immediately to feel "that's right," or "that's stupid," "that's abnormal," "that's unreasonable," "that's incorrect," "that's not nice."
Very rarely do we permit ourselves to understand precisely what the meaning of the statement is to the other person.

Issues in New Jersey Law: Expunging a Criminal Record

First off, if you just want to try and figure it out yourself, the State of New Jersey has published a do-it-yourself kit. It's available here.

Expungements can be very useful to someone who is looking to pare down or eliminate their criminal history. Someone with just one criminal charge who has to keep noting it on their employment applications (especially in this economy) might be especially eager to get rid of their "record" so that they look better in the job market. An expungement can do that, if done correctly.

However, expungements can get ugly and/or complicated. This is one of those situations where although the State has published a pro se kit, you might want to consider having a lawyer help you, if not do the whole thing for you. The only problem is, it's fairly expensive to have them help (probably starting north of $750).

Expungements require you to fill out the kit's paperwork, and to detail your entire criminal history. It may be helpful to get a criminal history check first so you are sure of the details. Additionally, you must serve these documents on a variety of different parties, and provide proof that you served them. This in and of itself is not an intuitive or easy task, and is made somewhat easier by having an attorney do it (who is used to the "service" requirements).

The law that governs expungements is at N.J.S.A. 2C:52-1 et seq. If you Google search the statute, it should come up for you; however, if you can't easily understand the statute and its terminology, you might well have trouble down the line with the expungement process. It might cause you more aggravation than it's worth to continually revise your application, especially because each time you do so, you have to re-serve everyone involved.

I personally recommend that you see a lawyer if you have an expungement issue, especially if your "brushes with the law" resulted in a conviction, are fairly recent, or were for any serious or drug-related crimes. You should also see a lawyer if you have had multiple convictions, as there is a possibility that you might not be able to get everything expunged.

"Value" billing and Hourly Billing: Some Links

On billable hours:

This post from Above the Law shows that average billable rates around the country are pretty high, no matter what kind of law you are asking about.

If you want a much more detailed indictment of the billable hour system and the problems it can create for both lawyer and client, look no further than the book Boo to Billable Hours, now available in its entirety online, for free. (Hat tip: Carolyn Elefant's excellent blog MyShingle, specifically this article.)

So what about if you would rather some alternative method of billing, like "value" billing? What is a fair rate? Some other thoughts:

The main problem with "value billing" is that nobody seems to be exactly sure how it can be measured. In other words, it has the exact opposite problem of that faced by billable hours.

However, Matthew Homann, on another excellent blog called "the [non]billable hour," explains why he thinks that "value billing" is all about being fair to your clients, and is the only way he uses to bill his clients.

So Now, How Should You Pay Your Lawyer?

This is the last of a series of posts describing different fee arrangements offered by attorneys.

Now that you know something about the various ways that you can pay a lawyer, evaluate each of those methods as best you can as they apply to your case. Feel free to suggest whatever method you think would be best for you.

Whatever you do, though, GET THE AGREEMENT IN WRITING. It is against ethics rules under most circumstances for a lawyer to not give you a written retainer agreement. You want to be protected by the content of some document.

Dirty Sexy Money: Ways You Shouldn’t (Or Can’t) Pay a Lawyer

This is one of a series of posts describing different fee arrangements offered by attorneys.

Make sure you do your research before you enter into a non-standard fee agreement. You want to make sure that you are not doing anything illegal. Here are a few examples of fee agreements you don’t want to be involved with:

Most state bars prohibit attorneys from collecting unreasonably large fees.

It is generally understood that you cannot charge a contingent fee in a criminal case ($15,000 if I win, etc.).

You cannot pay with sex for money.

You cannot pay by agreeing to do something illegal.

“Alternative” Arrangements for Paying Your Attorney

This is one of a series of posts describing different fee arrangements offered by attorneys.

I’ve laid out for you a variety of ways that lawyers commonly ask for payment. However, there’s nothing that says that those are the only ways you can pay. There are others; you just need to be creative and brainstorm a little. (There are also illegal ways to pay, but I’ll leave them alone for now.) These suggestions are not for the faint of heart, but they might be helpful depending on your circumstances.

If you are looking to start a business, and you need an attorney to do certain work for you, you may be able to pay the lawyer using a percentage of your business, or a certain amount of stock. In addition, you may be able to barter other services that you can perform, especially if those services are related in some way to the lawyer’s line of work. The key is to be flexible and creative, and to make sure that you aren’t going to end up paying too much simply because you can’t afford an up-front retainer. Also, it pays to stay informed and put into writing exactly what it is that you’re willing to do in order to make the exchange work.

Contingency: I Will Gladly Pay You Tuesday For a Lawsuit Today

This is one of a series of posts describing different fee arrangements offered by attorneys.

“You don’t pay unless we win!” or “You don’t pay us anything up front!” are two common ways of pitching what is known as a contingency fee arrangement. Simply put, contingency fees involve the lawyer taking a percentage of whatever you recover. The standard contingency fee ranges from one-quarter to one-third of the recovery, but many factors will affect what a lawyer chooses to charge.

The nice thing about this arrangement, obviously, is that you don’t have to pay up front. Even if the case is not successful, you may be able to avoid paying the costs of the litigation. However, be careful that you aren’t mortgaging your future for the convenience of not paying now- if you win a large amount of money and your lawyer has taken a sizable chunk, you may end up paying a substantially larger fee than you would have anticipated in the beginning.