How to choose a lawyer? What can you expect from your lawyer ?

By Xavier Gillot, on 19/10/2018 22:48 in Home > Toolbox > Multidisciplinary templates & tips > How to choose a lawyer? What can you expect from your lawyer ?

A lawyer is a professional who will represent you. Depending on the circumstances, said representation will take place before Court, during negotiations or for an arbitrage or operate through documents, contracts, etc.

A lawyer is a professional who will represent you. Depending on the circumstances, said representation will take place before Court, during negotiations or for an arbitrage or operate through documents, contracts, etc.

You should make sure your lawyer ‘fits’ you. Not only for guarantying a good comprehension of the aspects that are of importance to you but also to ensure that he/he will represent your interest in accordance with your expectations. Practicing law often consist in linking facts of the day-to-day life with legal texts ; the more your lawyer will match with you through his/her explanations, interpretations, proposed solutions, the more she/he will be able to build this bridge with you.

It will most generally be quite normal for your lawyer to need some time to answer your question. It is often difficult to realize the complexity of the work that has to be done in order to give answer to a legal issue. Since several decades, the legal and jurisprudential inflation is extraordinary. Every day more regulations are introduced, amended, replaced, while being managed by different authorities and the same is true regarding the decisions rendered by Courts that are multiplying with a great diversity. All this requires a huge follow up work and necessitates regular updates from your lawyer. And often, law will not provide for ‘the’ perfect solution because even though the legislator is trying to catch all foreseeable situations when introducing a new law, these situations are evolving, bring their own specificities, resulting in each case being unique. Finding the right answer will generally require your lawyer to check some elements, to take position on controversial debate, taking the circumstances of your case and the status of judicial and administrative jurisprudence into consideration. All this is time consuming.

In some situations, arbitration will have to be made taking into consideration the rate of the identified lawyers. In most cases, the more the lawyer has experience and is specialized, the more the rate will be high and the more the answer will come quickly. However, a younger profile working for a more reduced rate and who will most probably spend more time on the file, could deliver a similar result for the same price. Once again, addressing these questions before starting the collaboration must be advised. 

uLaw enables you to fine tune your search and find the best profile corresponding to your case but do not hesitate to contact different professionals to test it and the approach proposed by the contacted lawyer in order to ensure that he/she understands you and matches you.

Take the time to address all aspects of your file before starting your collaboration with your lawyer. Too many disappointments result from poor or bad communications between the contributors, be it commercial or personal. Lawyer – client relationships are not the exception proving the rule. It is one of the predominant questions Ulaw intends to facilitate by allowing you to ensure this full transparency and, through its work method, to be able to clarify these topics at the earliest stage of the collaboration; this is a performance guarantee that should be established as state of the art/golden rule. It will allow you to address, before triggering undesired consequences, the financial aspects, the timing, the reasonable expectations, etc., and ensure an efficient collaboration, transparent as to the crucial aspects, for your and your lawyer’s benefit.