Having difficult time finding "good" attorney

[twuoo]

I've spoken over the phone (briefly) with couple of attorneys. I can't seem to find one that I'm comfortable with.

I found an attorney who had the highest rating on the martindale website. I emailed him and he emailed me back a bunch of forms to fill out, which I did. Then I asked him some other questions, but he is somewhat evasive in answering me.

Should I still hire this attorney because he got such a good martindale rating or find somebody else.

I've consulted with a different attorney back in Feb and gave him a $100 retainer, but let him know that I wasn't filing till much later. He seemed "happy" to collect my cash. But when I call him up, he is very abrupt on the phone, almost hurrying me past my questions.

I don't really care about loosing the $100 in order to find someone better. But I'm just not having an easy time doing so.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[lrprn]

Here are some great suggestions for how to find a good bk lawyer and how to approach the bk lawyer interview to get most out of it - http://moranlaw.net/interview.html

Educate yourself thoroughly about bankruptcy ahead of time so you know where the potential problem areas are in your case. Ask about those areas in detail during every interview. Often here is where you will get a sense of who knows their stuff and who doesn't know it as well. Also you can judge their demeanor as they answer your questions to sort out who you think you can work with best.

If you get a negative impression during the interview, then odds are whatever you didn't like isn't going to get any better as your case rolls along. Just be sure that what you are judging by is realistic. Bk lawyers aren't there to be your friend and hold your hand whenever you are scared or stressed. They are there to interpret the law, guide us through the mysterious court processes that are Greek to us , and keep us from innocently making mistakes when we file because we don't understand the law and the customs and culture of our particular bk court and trustees.

HTH! Keep us posted how your interviews are going and what your impressions are each time you meet with a new lawyer.

[SinkingFast]

Our Trustee is an A rated BK attny. Personally, I wasn't very comfortable chatting with him at our 341. But he (Trustee) settled in and cracked a couple of jokes back and forth with our attny.

I don't know that I would have been comfortable chatting with him as our attny either. BUT, he is a very fair and reasonable Trustee. He works within the Law. We didn't see him try to "ream" people out of money. And he viewed each Filer on a case by case basis.

So maybe you don't click on a personal level. You aren't marrying the attny and planning on spending your life with him/her. The real question is how the attny will handle your BK.

If you're Ch 7, it's just 3-4 months and one Court appearance with him/her. If you file Ch 13, will he/she be there in 6 months or a year, or 2, from now to answer your questions?? Address any issues that might arise.

[guzzie]

hello....i called atty who people i know used...he returned my call asap and talked to me for 30 min....i felt very comfortable talking to him.....knew i was going to use him....at my first appt was like i knew him all my life....knew how to approach my case...did everything i needed as far as payments etc...got me through my 341 the other day, toot sweet...
could not have gotten this far without him....just one judgement to avoid left and discharge.
keep looking...you'll know when you find the right one....may buy mine dinner when i get discharged lol...good luck to you....guzzie

[Lindsay]

I think alot of lawyers are abrupt. A family member of my husbands was in trouble with the law once about ten years ago. It was a high profile case involving a police officer in another country the relative was visiting for the day. It was the top story on the local news for a whole week. My husband and I are pretty straight people so it was really humiliating for us. We wanted the very best lawyer for him so we researched well and hired a high profile attorney with a great reputation in that country. He had handled one of the highest profile cases ever in Canada recently.

He had a horrendous personality, extremly rude, patronizing, hard to get on the phone. He even made racial remarks at the first meeting! He had asked us to bring in videotape of the local news coverage and when he watched the video tape in his office, he commented, "I can tell that's (insert name of our local town) because I see all those (insert expletive and racist word beginning with letter N)." However, he did an amazing job in a seemingly impossible case. I'm still scarred by the experience though and it makes me nervous even to talk to any bankruptcy lawyers because I expect that the good ones are really mean. But I guess as Sinking Fast said, its not how you feel about him personality but how he handles the BK.

[goingout]

I would suggest talking to the attorney in person before making any decisions. After making my initial phone calls I really liked attorney #1 and was very put off by attorney #2, who also had a very abrupt style. After meeting them in person I now feel that attorney number #2 is much more knowledgeable and feel much more comfortable with him handling our case.

[$$only4ever]

My son had used our attorney for a simple traffice violation so we used him for the bankruptcy. I have been satisifed with him. Thanks to him dancing with the trustee, I ended up with a pretty fair plan, but SF is right, you are not marrying him or the trustee (god forbid)

Go with who ever you are the most comfortable with especially if you are filing a chapter 13 because you are pretty much stuck with him for 5 years.