How to Choose (or Not Choose) an Attorney

Frequently, I get calls from business owners & operators, & consumers, asking about how to select an attorney for either litigation, a transaction or counsel. Moreover, I get a lot of inquiries from current or prospective clients asking for referrals to other attorneys. Here’s the general advice I give them:

• Get referrals from people you trust. Referrals may come from your current attorneys, other attorneys your associated with, friends, family, business associations, chambers of commerce, your competitors, other business owners & acquaintances.
• If possible, get multiple referrals. Try not to rely on just one referral. When a business owner/operator is referred to me, or vice-versa, I advise them to check out my competitors. Why? Because if I was in “their shoes,” I’d do the same.
• Go with an attorney you feel comfortable with & whom you personally like. That doesn’t mean you have to be friends with your attorney, or that you have to know how they spend their personal time. What this means is that if you like your attorney, you’ll probably find it easier to work with them. If you don’t like your attorney, you’ll probably find that they’re more difficult to work with. Or, if they’re more difficult to work with, you probably won’t like them. Subsequently, it’s more likely trust or respect issues may ensue (pun intended). A client-attorney relationship is much like any other relationship. Your chemistry with your attorney is important.
• Ask tough questions of your prospective attorney. Don’t hesitate to put an attorney on the spot. If an attorney can’t answer your question in plain English, or answers a question with something like “don’t worry, I got this covered, just leave it to me,” but doesn’t actually answer your question, don’t hire that attorney. Furthermore, if you put an attorney on the spot, & they can’t coherently answer your questions, just imagine how they’ll do in front of a judge, jury, etc. They’ll probably be a disaster.
• Check out where that attorney is licensed to practice, & check out their disciplinary history with the state bar that they’re licensed by. This part can get a little tricky though. In Illinois, it’s very easy to check out an attorney’s disciplinary history. You just go to iardc.org (the Illinois Attorney Disciplinary & Registration Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois). It’s not a pretty website, but on the very first page, you can do a name search & find out if that attorney has ever been disciplined. In comparison, last week, a startup business from Indiana contacted me about my services & selecting an attorney. That call actually prompted me to write this article.
  • In real time, I took that business owner to Indiana’s state bar website to check out a randomly selected attorney to show them this process. Indiana’s website is prettier than Illinois, but it took about 10 minutes to find the right page to find that attorney’s disciplinary history (fortunately, that randomly selected attorney had no reported discipline issues 🙂 . Neither do I for that matter! 🙂 🙂 .
• Online reviews & testimonials are great, but verify that those testimonials or reviews are real. I’ve actually heard of attorneys posting fake reviews or testimonials. If an attorney has dozens of reviews or testimonials, you probably won’t have the wherewithal to verify all of them, so randomly select some to verify.
• Ask a prospective attorney to give you the names & contact information of other clients they serve, & contact those clients. This is just like any other job reference. Generally, I strongly encourage prospective clients to contact current clients of mine. I’m proud of the work I do for clients, & I want everyone to know & understand why.
• Ask the prospective attorney for references to actual cases they’ve handled or for work samples. I’ve posted some of my own cases online, & have sent prospective clients generic work samples & documents.
• Finally, although websites and social media profiles are great tools to vet an attorney, there are great attorneys who have neither. So, don’t automatically disqualify a prospective attorney because they don’t have a website, or because they’re not on social media, or they have an incomplete profile. If you’re referred to an attorney by someone, or a few people, whom you highly trust & respect, those references may outweigh that attorneys lack on an online presence. Or, to put this another way, a tremendous online presence doesn’t necessarily equate to tremendous service or skill.