Let's face it. Rhode Island lawyers and lawyers generally are officers of the court. We're supposed to be servants of the general public. Yet at exactly the same same we're independent practitioners and we we've got a job to do and money to bring in through our private practice or we don't survive.
It's no wonder Rhode Island Lawyers are viewed with skepticism and even cynicism, especially when it's time to hire one and you are not sure who to hire or how to proceed. Here you are, you have a legal issue that needs to be addressed and you take time to try to identify an attorney who will fit the bill.
It's easy for questions to surface as to if the attorney you're interviewing is looking out for your best interests or simply looking out for their own interests and making some money to put food on his or her own table. It is, in fact, appropriate for you to question the attorney's motives. The optimum time to do that is at the time you interview the attorney.
You should know that whenever you set up a scheduled appointment to see a lawyer, You're interviewing the attorney as much because the attorney is interviewing YOU.
So how do people generally go about choosing an attorney?
1) A referral from the friend or family member.
This can be a good way to obtain referrals for the attorney, but may be the attorney right for YOU? What did the attorney do for that family member or friend who made the referral? Did the attorney settle an injury case? That's not likely to do you much good if you need someone for a family group law matter. If your referral isn't to an attorney that regularly practices in your community of law you need and it isn't from the person who used those same type of family law services then your referral is "empty", quite simply a referral should be much better than just hunting around in the yellow pages. It should provide some valuable reassurance that the attorney you've been referred to, can and has already provided valuable an competent services to the person who is making the referral for you, and that those services are in the area of law that you need help with. Without that criteria, the referral is "Empty".
2) An advertisement in the yellow pages.
This is of course an even less effective way to decide on a suitable lawyer to interview compared to the referral from a friend or family member who did not use the attorney for exactly the same type of legal services that you are in need of. When you just select attorneys out from the yellow pages you'll most likely do like everybody else does. You select the attorney in line with the advertisement itself, particularly its size and its wording. Unfortunately neither of the are indicators that the attorney is competent or will last well in the area of law you are in need of. Suppose you are in need of a divorce attorney and you also select the attorney's advertisement this is the largest and includes what "Estates", "ACCIDENTAL INJURY Cases", and Divorces, etc... with 15 years used".
First, that advertisement probably cost quite a bit since even small advertisements in the yellow pages run $3,000 to $5,000 a year. From there you can take a guess who must pay for just that single marketing ad. That's right...that attorney's clients. It is possible to almost certainly plan to pay more for a lawyer with a good sized yellow page ad. Conversely, that attorney might be worth it if you select just the right one.
Second, the "15 years used" tells you one of two things. Either you are likely to pay more for all those years of experience or he has been doing "something" law-related for 15 years. I know attorneys who have been in practice for twenty years and have handled perhaps 10 divorces in that amount of time. By the same token the advertisement above wouldn't seem as impressive if you knew that the attorney only handled 4 divorces within his 15 years of practice. That might not want to function as attorney you want to represent you if you need a Rhode Island Divorce attorney and complex divorce issues regarding pensions, alimony and tax consequences on the sale of a home come into play.
3) Search for the kind of Rhode Island lawyer you need on the internet.
This is becoming more and more the method of looking for attorneys in the technoliterate sector of society. Those that choose this method of searching can head to Google.com or another search site of their choice and enter the various terms they want to search on. Searchers may also vary their search terms if the results usually do not suit them. The main benefit to searching the web to get Rhode Island attorneys to interview is the alternative party nature of the ranking system. In a search system such as for example Google.com, the principal listings are ranked by criteria that aren't controlled by attorney. It really is Google's system that analyzes the attorney's websites and/or pages and determines from there if the attorney's website matches the criteria you are interested in. In this way you're getting an unbiased collection of attorney websites to review.
Secondarily, should you be searching on the internet for an attorney, you will know if the attorney has a website or not. This can at least offer you some indication that the attorney has kept up with technology. If he or she did so then if it's important to have the ability to communicate with your attorney by email this can be a factor in your choice to interview that particular attorney. The information on the site of the attorney is also likely to be the most focused regarding what his / her primary practice areas. In some instances the attorney's website provides the most valuable information about the attorney in order to decide which attorneys to interview.