Three Things You Should Know Before Hiring a Lawyer

By Deirdre Glascoe a.k.a  "The Legal Critic"

Growing up I used to hear a lot of lawyer jokes. I never understood why lawyers received such bad raps until after I had hired a few. There are good lawyers out there, but seven out of ten lawyers that I used, turned out to be incompetent, unethical, or just plain old slime-balls. In retrospect, I could have saved myself several thousand dollars if I had known three things before hiring a lawyer.

1. WHOSE SIDE THE LAWYER IS REALLY ON.
You might think that contemplating whether your lawyer is on your side is a silly thing to have to wonder – of course he’s on your side, you’re paying him right? Wrong! A lawyer has three conflicting interests: self-interest; the court’s interest and his client’s interest; and he exercise his loyalties in that order.

First, a lawyer has to eat just like you; so you shouldn’t be surprised that self-interest comes first. When you walk into a lawyer’s office do you really think he ponders whether he can right a wrong against you? Absolutely not! He ponders the compensation, no not for you silly – for him! If your case can’t generate enough cash to buy him a yacht, he will probably look at you with an empathetic face and say “Sorry, you have no case.”

Second, there’s the court’s interest. Yes. It’s hard to believe, but the court’s interest takes precedence over your interest. Your attorney is an officer of the court, and therefore has a duty to the court. The conflict between the court’s interests and your interest usually manifests in the form of resource management. The court wants you out of the system as quickly as possible, because frankly, they can’t handle all the people they arrest. So why do they arrest more people than they can process? That’s a topic for another article, but let’s just says it’s a lucrative industry.

Back to this topic though, the court wants to reduce its workload; so it will attempt to bully you into accepting a settlement even if the law is on your side. The court will look to your attorney for assistance. So, instead of vigorously pursuing your case, it’s your attorney’s job to convince you to settle; and he will use every bit of trickery he has trying to convince you. Except, of course he first weighs his interest against the court’s interest and won’t pressure you to settle until he has drained all of the blood out of that stone you call a purse. When he doesn’t think he can get any more money from you, he might just settle your case without your permission.

Finally, your interest bubbles to the top of your attorney’s priority list, but by this time, he is bored and ready to move on to his next victim … oops I mean client.

2. WHETHER YOUR LAWYER IS IN GOOD STANDING. No, not with the State Bar silly; you need to know what kind of standing your lawyer is in with his previous clients. This can be a good indicator of the treatment you can expect from him. Humans are creatures of habit. If your potential attorney screwed previous clients, it’s a good chance he’s going to screw you.

To obtain the attorney’s standing, take a trip to the court clerk's office. Enter the attorney’s name in their public database and look for pleadings and filings that the attorney has filed in the past. Write down his former client’s names off of the pleadings. To find the outcome of the case write down the case number and ask the clerk to let you review the case file. A disposition, stating whether a judgment was entered for or against the attorney’s client should be on top. Compile the names from cases that the attorney has lost into a list.

When you visit the attorney, give him the list of names you’ve obtained and ask him for the contact information so that you may check his references. If he gives you some spiel about attorney-client privilege being the reason he WON’T ... oops CAN’T give you the contact information, then this should be your first clue that its time to find another attorney. A competent attorney can find a solution to any problem; so a competent attorney might say “I can't give you their contact information -- but I will give them YOUR contact information and have them contact you.”

If the attorney is in good standing he will contact the client and ask them to call you and give him a reference. But if you don't hear from the client or the attorney again -- count yourself blessed, and move on.

3. IF YOUR ATTORNEY MISDIAGNOSES YOUR CASE, HE CAN CAUSE YOU TO LOSE RIGHTS.

Lawyers like to make the most money with the least effort. Therefore after listening to the facts of your case, if they haven’t already stood up and shown you the door with their “you have no case” spiel, then the next step will be to determine which aspects of your case to cherry pick in order to maximize financial compensation. No; not financial compensation for you, silly; financial compensation for them.

Cherry picking is harmful; it can cause you to forever lose the rights that weren’t picked. This is because of two legal doctrines: res judicata and collateral estoppel. In my new book A Game Called Justice, I explain how my attorneys mishandled my case and under these doctrines caused me to lose rights.

So if you haven’t already figured it out, I’ve had some attorneys who left me in a worst position than I was before I entered their office. So my final word of caution — if you come across any of my former attorneys, named in my book, RUN!!!


Deirdre Glascoe is the founder of the National Association of Pro se Litigants, Inc,(www.napsl.org) The story of Ms. Glascoe’s personal struggle with the U.S. justice system, her proposed new attorney rating system, and the “Justice Game,” which she created for all those entering a courtroom can be found in her new book, A Game Called Justice. For more information, please visit www.agamecalledjustice.com or see the book listing on Amazon.com.