Picking an attorney

[DivorceRuinedMe]

SinkingFast gave me the martindale site to find an attorney that is AV rated which I'm not having a problem doing. What I am having a problem doing is distinguishing which attorneys are for the debtors and which are for the creditors? For example, if I look at an attorney and his areas of practice include: bankrutpcy and creditor's rights, wouldn't that mean they are defending the creditors??? How do I know if they handle cases for consumers/debtors??

Someone steer me in the right direction here. Here is the list that I have to go off of:

http://www.martindale.com/xp/Martindale/Lawyer_Locator/Search_Lawyer_Locator/search_result.xml?PG=0&STYPE=N&FNAME=&LNAME=&FN=&CN=tampa&ISA=&CTY=&STS=10&CRY=1&SCC=&PAREA=729&SET=&YRS=&LNG=&LSCH=&ratind=Y&MTY=&MTR=&bc=2114

[Granny]

Call and ask them. I wish I had talked to one who did both. Just because they handle the creditor's rights doesn't mean they don't also handle the debtor side of it too.

I made the mistake (twice) of going with someone who only does the debtor side of it and I am paying double for one secured creditor because the attorney's didn't understand what it was the creditor's attorney was attempting and succeeded in doing for the creditor.

Another point to consider, at least for us, there is one attorney here who is also a CPA, I believe we would have been better off with him too, even though he runs a bankruptcy mill.

The mistake I made with the first attorney was this... I was impressed because he started out as an attorney for the Chase Foreclosure/Bankruptcy dept....not a good reason to be impressed, but initially, I was concerned about my house and wasn't concerned about the secured debt that has turned out to be the thorn in my side.

[DivorceRuinedMe]

Well, I went down that whole list and one thing I learned is that only those attys that are "featured peer reviewed" are showing up there. There are others that are peer reviewed that are not showing up there and I just typed in the city and state and bankruptcy as the specialty and way more came up. I then went atty by atty and called all the AV rated ones. MOST of them are on the creditors side but I was able to find a few that I set up consults with.

One of them wanted a $200 nonrefundable consult fee and I was like - no thanks. If I don't like him then I'm out that money and I really can't afford to be out anymore money right now - LOL!

[twuoo]

You know, I wanted to use the martindale site as well to pick the better rated attorneys. But they know they have the better rating, so you know you'll pay extra for that too.

I don't know if I made a mistake or not, but I did go visit only one attorney and paid him a small retainer on the spot. I felt comfortable with him. He was wearing blue jeans in the office...lol.

Later, I did call about 2 other attorneys and I didn't like how they communicated with me, even over the phone. Some don't even bother to return a phone call.

I have had terrible luck picking 'good' attorneys. Even attorneys that people say are 'good' end up disappointing me. And I don't believe it's because I'm an unreasonable person, at least I don't think so

In the end, most attorneys are sharks. Sorry for the generalization. I worked with a different attorney who would rather look good in front of the judge than fight for something that I feel strongly about. She's representing herself, not me.

I was on one of the bankruptcy websites (sorry, can't remember which one as I've visited SO MANY). But the website was the one that gave me the information of the current bk attorney that I'm going with.

[SinkingFast]

When we hired our attny, I wondered how in the world he made a living. Let alone own a piece of the partnership, AND pay 2 paralegals only filing 4-5 BK's/month. The "BK Mill" attnys turn 20-30 BK's a month.

Turns out, our attny is a Creditor's Rights attny who turns a few BK's on the side each month.

So there are Creditor's Rights attnys who do file BK's for people.

[twuoo]

I think my bk attorney quoted me approximately $1500 to do the chapter 7 filing. Seems like reasonable price to me.