How to interview a lawyer

[Unsure14]

Hi,
I have an appointment with an attorney tomorrow, my first, and I am not sure what I am suppose to ask, and what I should be looking for as a response. I can get a feel for them as a person, but I want to make sure they are efficient as well as friendly.
What do they good ones do that the lazy ones do not?
Any input would be helpful.

[Flamingo]

A good lawyer will try to sell himself to you as you will be paying him for his services. He should advise you how long he has been practicing and how long he has been handling BKs and how long he has been with that firm or just in business himself if a single attorney. You can also search him/her out on the internet and get a feel for things he/she has been involved in. You should not feel rushed or feel like a number during the appointment and he/she should answer your questions to your satisfaction.

I am a firm believer of trusting your first instinct/hunch regarding a person or situation. If you are uncomfortable or not happy, see another attorney.

[Bandit]

get to know everything about the law you can possibly know in your state. get to know as many possibilities as you can for different outcomes.
get to know the forms.
etc.etc.etc.


then ask questions about those laws that you know absolute answers to. if they know the answers without hesitation then they will know how to help you. if they have to fumble around & get back to you, then beware...& believe me, I talked to many high & low who do not know what they are doing.

look for organization in the counsel & in the records of the office.
watch out for the real pushy ones & those who dont know or dont care about the little details & specifics of your case.

that is just a couple of things to get you started while in the end you will still be roseponsible for them getting it right when you sign the dotted line.

you can do a lot of your searching by telephone & you do not have to tell them all your contact info when you are just asking questions & searching for one. set up a routine questionaire of things that concern you & see how they react to them & things like that....

there are some real good websites that help you find a good one too.

hope that helps get ya started

[Bandit]

I am a firm believer of trusting your first instinct/hunch regarding a person or situation. If you are uncomfortable or not happy, see another attorney.

I was the same way

[AngelinaCat]

I agree with both of Bandit's posts. We went into our attorney's office (free consultation) and were immediately charmed. We thought we had met a nice, competent, patient person who would shepherd us (total ignoramuses) through this extremely bewildering process.

Boy, were we wrong, and are now paying the consequences. It was a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde situation. She dragged her feet for almost 18 months before filing anything, and kept asking for the same information over and over. I know situations change and things have to be kept up to date. But when we tried to ask questions or get clarifications about things, we barely got an email replay, and rarely could get her office to answer. She is a single practitioner with one assistant. And the four times we were actually in her office for consultations, we were barely graced 15 minutes of her time. And when we did, she spent much of it screaming at us for things we didn't do because we didn't KNOW to do them.

I could go on, but much of our complaints have been voiced in other threads. If you search on my pen name and my husbands: AngelinaCatHub, you can get an idea of our experience. There were many things missed in our paperwork that SHOULD have been included, but weren’t, because we were not sufficiently educated by our attorney. These are now coming to light and will probably bite us in the seat.

Another poster said elsewhere to “educate yourself, read this forum and be prepared when you go to your first meetings. That way you’ll keep your attorney honest.”

Good luck to you~~~~

[PaKettle]

I agree that you can't always go by their personality.
Mine definitely knew the law, did lots of cases and in that respect he was a "good attorney". And I liked his demeanor - he seemed easy going and had a "can do" attitude.

However, it turned out that he did sloppy work in filling out the petition, he did not return phone calls in a timely manner, and he was generally a pain in the ass to deal with - also got sick for our 341 and sent some other attorney in his place. I felt that was excusable since he "really was sick" but then I found out he did the same thing to someone else a month later, so I have my doubts as to how sick he was, now.

I'm STILL trying to get him and/or his office to give us back our pay stubs and tax returns. But at least he did get the job done - we got our discharge.

So, the bottom line is, it's hard to tell sometimes if the guy is really good or not. The best thing is to get a personal recommendation from someone who used him for a Ch. 7.

Here's a thread about what to ask the attorney in your meeting - my post is toward the bottom of this thread:

http://www.bkforum.com/showthread.php?t=21810