People seldom consider keeping a personal attorney on retainer to help them with enhance their lives by using the law to their own advantage as much as possible. And many who do consider the idea get held up choosing one and getting started. Oftentimes, they just don’t know how to find and pick a lawyer they think is competent enough to make them feel confident in their choice. So, here are a few things to consider when you are looking to hire your own personal attorney.
First, understand why you need a personal attorney.
The goals of almost all people’s life plans comprises:
- creating and learning how to live in a way will allow you to
- get the most out of whatever resources you can muster and
- enjoy your optimal standard of living and
- allow to succeed as much as possible in life
for whatever your life may bring, whether it be having a family and working until and after a healthy retirement or dealing with whatever disaster, disease, disability, or death comes along, and then to be able to help those you may have to leave behind.
Because life is a dynamic process, your lifecycle goals may change over the years as your lifecycle events shift your lifestyle or circumstances such as an inheritance, career change, marriage, house purchase or a growing family. Once you start get ting ahead in your life, you will then need to work on growing and leveraging all the kinds of assets you gather on a regular basis, then you will need help putting together a plan that balances possible risk with desirable rewards, reduces expenses, and limits your taxes.
Doing effective and efficient lifecycle planning means working with someone who can help you see how you can game “the system” to your own advantage and leverage what assets you have to get the most out past, your present, and your future legally.
Second, deal only with flat-fee-only attorneys.
In most cases, an attorney should be able to give you a fairly exact estimate of how much it will cost you to have him or her handle a particular issue for you. And, if they are good at what they do, then they should be able to give you a flat-fee price for doing whatever the you and your lawyer decide you need.
At LifeCycle Law, we only recommend working with flat-fee-only professions instead of those who charge by the hour or earn commissions on the services and products they recommend. Most attorneys charge by the hour, but many are now working, like we LifeCycle attorneys do, i.e. by working for a flat fee for a specific set of services. You should learn up front exactly what you’re paying and what you’re paying it for.
Third, look for education, training, and experience and not just certifications.
While all attorneys are licenses by their state bars, not all lawyers are “certified” in a particular area of the law. While anyone can say they focus on a particular area of the law, there are differences in the education, training, and experience each attorney has. The best lawyers have both a broad knowledge of many areas of the law and some deep knowledge in a few particular areas of legal practice.
Some attorneys may be certified by certification agencies approved by their state attorney boards. But, when it comes to hiring a lawyer that will be helping you understand a variety of legal issues that arise during the rest of your life, you are better off finding a lawyer who has confidence, competence, and the ability to learn about you and your legal issues as they arise and help you understand how to use the law to your best advantage proactively instead of reactively.
Fourth, meet with and ask your prospective attorney a lot of questions.
If a prospective attorney will not sit down with you for a complimentary initial conversation, then choose someone else.
Once you get face-to-face with your prospective personal attorney, there are a lot of questions to ask. You will only have time, however, for about 10. We already discussed a few of them. Here are some more to discuss:
- What are you going to do as my personal?
- How are you going to do it?
- How are we going to figure out, as we work together, how we are doing at it?
- How do you expect to be paid?
- What education, training, and experience do you have in both the practice of law and the practice of life?
- What makes you different from mere mortal attorneys?
- Why did the last few clients who left you leave?
- What questions do you want to know about me; my current facts, circumstances, and plan?
- What basic recommendations would you make based on my basic answers to those basic questions?
- What does your initial LifeCycle plan document look like and will you show me a few of them after redacting them as needed?
- How quickly will you get back to me if I call or send you an email?
- How good are you at practicing what you preach and are you willing to show it to me?
If anything your prospective attorney says while discussing these twelve things gives you pause, then finish the full discussion and talk about any issues you may have. If the prospective attorney doesn’t want to help you feel as comfortable as possible, then go somewhere else.
Some people don’t need personal attorneys, so we are told. But, we haven’t met many of them. Almost all of our clients can use a LifeCycle lawyer. And we would be happy to work for you and with you to help you be Great! All the time! Call us for a free discussion at 410-525-3476 of 410-LCL-FIRM.