How to Work With a Lawyer

by Nicholas Walsh, PA

After 26 years in the business, I’ve had all kinds of clients: murderers, millionaires, liars, ones who tried to set me up and a thousand others. But the most fundamental distinction is between clients who waste my time and their money, and the ones who work efficiently with me to get the job done.

The first step to working with a lawyer is finding the right one. Maybe you already have a lawyer you know and trust, and for a routine will or transaction, that may be just who you need. But if your matter is deadly serious or possibly out of your lawyer’s usual line of work, you owe it to yourself to take care that he or she is competent to do the work. If there’s a lot on the line, you may, as with other vendors and contractors with whom you deal, want to ask whether your lawyer has malpractice insurance in a sufficient amount. Maine does not require lawyers to carry insurance, and some don’t. Others carry it in a minimal amount, perhaps $100,000. Everybody makes mistakes, and if your lawyer blows a million dollar claim because he or she misses a filing deadline, that’s no time to find out there’s no policy, or one that’s too small. I’ve seen it happen.

To make sure you have the right lawyer, ask the right questions. Has the lawyer handled this type of matter before? How frequently? If your case is one which will be litigated, how many trials has the lawyer actually tried, all the way to judgment? If your case will be tried by a jury, how many jury trials has your lawyer tried in the past five years – to judgment? Jury trials are both rare and extremely demanding, but a genuine trial lawyer should be doing one at least every year or so.

A while back, a client told me his son, who served in the Army, was being held in past his discharge date because he faced a loan sharking charge. The boy was in California and the matter would be tried by a court martial. My client asked me to find his son a lawyer. I called a few of the clerks of the courts martial in that area and got the names of several civilian lawyers who regularly tried cases. I interviewed them by phone and asked specific questions. One had much more trial experience than the others. His other credentials checked out. He was expensive, but my client retained him on behalf of his son, and within a few weeks the Army both dismissed the charge and honorably discharged the young man. An expensive lawyer may be cheap at the price.

Now that you’ve got a lawyer, get organized. When at the outset of a case I get a client’s background material (emails, letters, bills, memos, etc.), my first challenge is to make sense of it. I almost always make a copy of the documents and put the copied material in chronologic order, perhaps creating a memo at the same time. This takes time, but the better organized my client’s material is when he or she brings it in, the faster the job goes.

Tell your lawyer everything that might affect the case. If you’re not sure if a fact is important, tell it. Facts are the tools with which lawyers win cases, so don’t decide by yourself which facts are important.

If your case is in court, you will almost certainly have to provide the other side with a response to a document request. One way to lose a case is by failing to produce documents which you have, or which your banker or accountant or other agent has. Yet a client failing to search for documents is a recurring and sometimes very serious problem.

Promptly return your lawyer’s communications. I always ask my clients if there is an email address, but I also ask whether they check it at least twice a day. If you only occasionally check email, make sure your lawyer knows that.

If you’re going out of town or otherwise becoming unavailable, let your lawyer know well in advance.

Pay promptly! I used to tell clients that all my clients fall into three categories, and to a certain extent this is still true. The “A” category is clients who pay promptly. These I will get up in the middle of the night for, and otherwise undertake near-heroic actions. The B category pays in 30 days. These get the usual excellent service. The C category owes me money. These last clients - not so much.

Nicholas Walsh is an attorney practicing in Portland, Maine. He may be reached at (207) 772-2191, or at nwalsh@gwi.net.