Making Your Choice Of Law Firms

Anywhere you turn, you are bound to stumble upon a law firm. Often you will find a law firm owned and ran by a single individual; other times you will also find the larger law firms, which employs many lawyers and their staff. If you need legal representation in a case, or you just want a lawyer to oversee your interests, you will have a ready array of law firms to choose from.

When you suddenly find yourself in need of the services of a lawyer or a law firm, how do you go about choosing which firm to approach? Do you make your choice randomly, choosing the first law firm that catches your eye? Do the recommendations of family and friends hold much water for you? You could also go to those attorneys whom you personally know. You may also want to be more in-depth in your research and gather whatever information you can about these law firms to see which is the best one.

What is the right way of doing it? I enumerated some steps earlier; doing them all would be the most ideal way of going about choosing one. First, be as random as you like in looking for law firms. The yellow pages are good sources of law firms and law practices in your area. An internet search will also yield many results. Make a list of the names of these firms.

Now that list should be narrowed down, and you would need to do some research to accomplish that. Take into account the suggestions, recommendations and opinions of your family, friends and acquaintances. Since public opinion would also help, go outside your circles and ask around. You may find out a thing or two from complete strangers.

Go online and look up the websites of these law firms and learn more about the firm. These law firms have particular branches of the law they specialize in and the websites are a good place to find that out. If they are not handling divorce cases, maybe they are dealing with DUI cases? Are they solely working on criminal cases or personal injury suits? Depending on what you need their services for, you can considerably narrow the list down by removing those law firms whose services do not match your need. It is also highly possible that you will find some old clients or even the present clients of these law firms in these websites. Talk to them.

A huge part of these websites are also dedicated to the recognitions, accolades and awards accorded to the firm or its lawyers. If you are not satisfied with that, look into the lawyers employed by the firm themselves. After all, a law firm is only as good as the people behind it - the lawyers. You probably even care about which law school or undergrad university they went to.

The track performance record and success rate of the law firm will also be a good deciding factor. You can also look into the cases similar to yours that were previously handled by the law firm and look at the result they achieved. Your preference would obviously be for the law firm that has shown a better performance than the others.

Next you would have to personally look into how much they charge or bill their clients for services rendered. Many lawyers charge an hourly fee. But in recognition of those who are not really financially well-off, payment plans are set forth. Find the one you can afford or the plan that will not be too onerous for you. Meeting with these lawyers will give you an idea if you will be able to work with them and actually trust them with your case.