Ask 2 Lawyers: How Do I Hire an Attorney?

How do I hire an attorney well that's always a tricky question I mean when you get into these situations with trusts and Will's doesn't matter if you're doing a trust contest challenging the validity of a trust or you're going after trust accounting it's hard to know who you should hire because it is a specialty and a lot of people don't understand this so there's not that many attorneys who practice and trust the Wills but within that universe of trust and will attorneys there's an even smaller group that does the litigation side that's the court work the stuff that we do when we're in court and so you really have to find somebody who knows both the Trust's and wills side of your case but also knows their way around litigation because there's going to be subpoenas depositions there can be a trial so I mean there's a lot to put together so how do you take all of that knowing that this is kind of a specialty how do you find the right person in your opinion Stewart well in my opinion I suggested people go to Google you always go to Google Google to start and put in trust litigation California trust litigation accountants those kind of things trust litigation probate and you'll get a hodgepodge of firms that practice in this area and then it's just a matter of looking through their websites seeing if you feel comfortable with them if you do call interview them generally just because two or three firms are qualified you want to go with the firm that you have chemistry with and that you feel good with about and that you had a good interaction with right and so an in-person meeting you can't beat that but if you can't do an in-person meeting because of the distance give a phone call talk to them ask them have they dealt with accountants before have they dealt with litigated matters pertaining to accountants lawyers shouldn't be offended by that I'm not offended when people ask me those questions right now so I'm happy to say yes we've dealt with thousands of those things and yes we can do a good job for you but ultimately you need to feel good about who you're hiring they need to be able to explain at least from a 30,000 foot standpoint this is what we can do for you this is what we can't do for you but here's what we can do and here's what we're gonna try to do for you and I think it's good to talk to a couple firms get a feel for them I mean trust your gut if you have a bad reaction with somebody you know that probably means something maybe it does maybe a dozen but this is somebody that when you work with a lawyer it's somebody you're after do trust throughout the duration of your case that's right and you don't want to start that relationship without trust and so if you don't feel a connection and a trust with somebody at the outset I think it's better not to hire that lawyer for whatever it doesn't matter what the reason is it's just you know trying to try to find somebody else the other point I would make is you got to make sure you find a lawyer that matches the style that you want so for example at our law firm we tend to be on the more aggressive side we like to file these cases for beneficiaries we like to work them very quickly and very hard and we like to kind of have a more aggressive approach a lot of people like that but not everybody some people would rather try to spend some time working things out outside a court before filing vais right by sending letters and trying to negotiate now in our opinion we don't like that we don't think it works we don't see a whole lot of value in doing that but that doesn't mean that we're always right there certainly could be cases where resolution can be had I suppose if you do it outside of court but again you have to mirror like what the style that you want for your case your lawyer has to be on the same page and so if you're hiring an aggressive law firm but you don't want an aggressive representation that's probably a bad fit so you should think about that right I agree with all that albertson and Davidson is here to help you fight for your inheritance check out al Dave law comm for our complete library of helpful legal videos and articles from your favorite California trusts and we'll litigation law firm Albertson and Davidson LLP.