How to find a lawyer

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Beerwolf
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2010 11:13 am

How to find a lawyer

Post by Beerwolf »

So far I've used a self-made Nolo press will (in an envelope on my desk), but now i'm divorced and have no family i feel i need a professional will. It's all very simple, with most money and investments at Vanguard with transfer-on-death, as is my retirement, so it's just the house, contents, dog and bank account. So far I've had lawyers quote upwards of $2500 for this, which i'm sure their secretaries simply input on a standardized form in a few minutes.
Without sounding like an oxymoron, how do i find a capable lawyer who charges a reasonable fee?
Thanks for any advice
chaz
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Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 1:44 pm

Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by chaz »

Call your local bar association.

Good luck.
Chaz | | “Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons." Woody Allen | | http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
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ResearchMed
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Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by ResearchMed »

Check for any professional sanctions, or complaints.

(If you see multiple complaints, or the same type repeated, run-don't-walk to find a different attorney. The type of complaint might make a big difference, too. It's one thing if there are complaints about high charges, not that it's ever good, but that can be somewhat subjective, unless it's "they charged 3x what they stated, with no mention until billing", etc. But read especially carefully if there are any, especially if repeated, about things like missing filing/court deadlines, not notifying clients of important matters, or being difficult to reach with no backup.)

Unfortunately, the most serious of complaints are probably "solved" by some sort of settlement with a non-disclosure agreement, so no one else will know - not much different from other types of secret settlements, be it in the finance or medical or <other> area.

RM
Chicago60
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Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by Chicago60 »

Chaz's suggestions is dead on: Contact your local (city) Bar Association if in a large metropolitan area, or State Bar and ask for a referral for someone who has the expertise in the area of law you need. ResearchMed is also right: check online information for disciplinary complaints against the lawyer and see what the basis of the allegations were, if any.
J295
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Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2012 10:40 pm

Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by J295 »

Ask a trusted friend or acquaintance for a referral, then mention the referral source when you call. If your referral source is a lawyer who does not practice in estate planning this could be valuable as he/she will likely have a good base of knowledge to make the referral. You can review the credentials of the prospective counsel at the firm's website. All lawyers are not created equal, and even for something you believe to be relatively straightforward I believe you will want a lawyer with experience and strong academic credentials to help you make sure your plan meets your objectives. I have identified other professionals (accountants and doctors) using the same methodology. Fyi, I am a lawyer with 29 years of experience (former partner now part time "of counsel"). I will also add, in my experience in our middle America community of 250,000, there are many hard working lawyers of high integrity who provide services for a fair fee (although certainly good lawyers are not cheap). Good luck!
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dm200
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Location: Washington DC area

Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by dm200 »

For an attorney to do your will, trust, related documents (Durable Powers of Attorney, living Will/advanced directive) I would recommend:

[This recommendation is based on one very bad experience and choice, followed a few years later by an excellent choice]

1. Locate possibilities as suggested in other posts, and develop a list to narrow down to a final choice.

2. Contact and research each candidate. Ask what the major part of their practice consists of. The answer you want is that they do a major part of their practice doing wills, trusts, etc. Do NOT initially ask if they do wills, trusts, etc. If they say that a major part of the practice is wills, trusts, etc., then ask then to describe the type(s) of folks they do this for. The answer you want should be that they deal with folks like you a lot. if their primary type of client is a billionaire, and you are not even close, then they may not be for you. Ask how long they have been doing wills, trusts, etc. Probably (although there may be exceptions) you want someone who has several (or many) years experience doing this. [Our 'badly burned' experience was when we engaged an attorney who told us he did a lot of wills, trusts, etc. Since he was not real young, I assumed he had done this for many years. Only when, in the midst of doing our wills, etc. and he seemed to have to "research" even what seemed simple things, did we find out that this guy had only recently changed from many years as a litigator to doing wills and trusts.] I also think it is important that an attorney be experienced with issues related to your state of residence. This should narrow down the list. I would also ask that, in their practice, how many wills do they do and how many living trusts. In my opinion, they should do a significant number of both. Based on what I know and believe, I would not choose an attorney who did almost all wills (and few trusts) or almost all trusts (and few wills).

3. Some people and some attorneys are good "fits" to work well and some are not. You only know this by some kind of personal interaction. Before committing to spending a lot of money, time and effort - figure out a way to have this interaction. Some attorneys have free or very low cost group information sessions on estate planning or related topics. Some may offer free or very low cost - very short "get acquainted meeting. " Maybe a telephone call conversation can help determine "personality" compatibility.

4. Having done the above, now understand what the cost will be, or how the cost is determined, and that you are comfortable with that. Different people may reach different conclusions. Some attorneys charge an hourly rate based on actual time spent doing the work. That may be fine with you, or it may not be. [Our 'disaster' experience attorney charged an hourly rate, but that turned out to be terrible because he was charging us the hourly rate to do "research" on things he should have known, but did not because he had just switched from litigation!] With the straight hourly rate, also, if there is a misunderstanding that requires redrafting the document(s), you pay for the corrections. The same for a drafting error. One attorney that we know personally, and who I used in another type of case where I needed representation (and who did a great job for me!), also does wills, trusts, etc. We were chatting about various matters and I asked her how she charged for wills, trusts and the like. [We did not need those services, so this was just a conversation]. She said she charged by the hour and did the drafting right on a computer while dealing with the client. I then asked her what if she made a drafting error in the documents. Her answer was, quite emphatically, that she never made such a mistake. While she was fantastic (in my opinion) in her representation of me in one situation, her and my "personality" would not be compatible to do estate planning.

Another pricing method (and the one our great attorney used) is a modest fee (something like $250 - $350 or so) for a review and recommendation of exactly what you need, why you need it, a fixed price (or prices) for the documents. We had met this attorney at a free group information session he regularly conducts (about 1 -2 hours) from time to time, so we were satisfied with the "personality" issues. We had a meeting of about 45-60 minutes at this fixed fee (think it was about $250) . We brought copies of our wills, POAs, advanced directives, assets, family situation, and so on. At the end, he gave us a recommendation that we need either wills or trusts, new Durable POAs and our advanced directives were OK. He gave us fixed prices for each, leaning slightly towards trusts. We decided to go with wills, and he fully understood our choice -and that the choice of wills was just fine. His "fixed price" included a review of the drafts of the documents and any corrections, as well as an optional session with him reviewing the final documents in detail. The wills were drafted and we reviewed the drafts. Another attorney in his practice actually did the drafting, and there were two drafting errors (one due to a slight misunderstanding and another was a copy and paste error. The corrections were made, we reviewed the drafts again (all was 100% fine) and we went to his office and signed everything, had the documents notarized, etc. Included as part of the "package" were detailed wording/instructions about changing beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance. We did not need the detailed review of the documents.

I am sure there are other variants on cost/pricing - but I strongly recommend understanding and being comfortable with whatever is decided. No surprises!!!
bsteiner
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Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by bsteiner »

Beerwolf wrote:...i need a professional will. It's all very simple, with most money and investments at Vanguard with transfer-on-death, as is my retirement... So far I've had lawyers quote upwards of $2500 for this, which i'm sure their secretaries simply input on a standardized form in a few minutes.
Without sounding like an oxymoron, how do i find a capable lawyer who charges a reasonable fee?
You may have already found some.

The task involves:

The first meeting for the lawyer to ask about the people, the assets, and your objectives, and to go over your choices. That will probably take at least an hour. That includes discussing powers of attorney, living Wills and health care proxies (or the equivalent), and explaining why transfer on death is generally not a good idea. It also includes discussing beneficiary designations for life insurance (if any) and retirement benefits (if any).

Some time to draft the Will. While most of the components are relatively standard, the lawyer has to select the appropriate ones and do some customizing.

Some time (though not very much) to prepare the power of attorney, living Will and health care proxy (or their equivalent), if desires.

Some time to prepare the cover letter to send you the draft.

Some time to discuss any questions you may have, to make any changes you might want, and to arrange for you to come in and sign.

Some time to meet with you and have your sign your Will.

Without knowing more about your situation, and what part of the country you're in, it's hard to say whether it would likely cost more or less than the figure you mentioned. However, if you were to find one whose estimate was substantially less than the others, you might wonder whether he/she had the same project in mind.
J295 wrote:You can review the credentials of the prospective counsel at the firm's website. All lawyers are not created equal, and even for something you believe to be relatively straightforward I believe you will want a lawyer with experience and strong academic credentials to help you make sure your plan meets your objectives.
Agreed. I do that when bringing in lawyers in other locations.

While not perfect, you can also check a lawyer's rating at http://www.martindale.com. They rate lawyers A, B or C, with no grade inflation. The ratings are based on peer review. If a lawyer gives my name as a reference, they'll send me a list of, say, 20 lawyers, to rate, without telling me which one gave them my name.

You could also post what part of the country you're in, and perhaps someone will respond privately with some suggestions.
dm200 wrote:...Some attorneys charge an hourly rate based on actual time spent doing the work...
Lawyers generally work on a time basis. The amount of time for the same project can vary considerably from one client to another, for reasons more within the client's control than the lawyer's control. If a client wants a fixed fee, the lawyer may want to quote a fee at the high end of what the lawyer thinks is the probable range, both to protect against the risk, and also because once the client has a fixed fee, the client has no incentive to minimize the amount of time required for the project. In other words, if I thought the time for a project would be between $5x and $10x, and someone wanted a fixed fee, I might ask for $10x.
dlw322
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu Mar 29, 2012 8:01 pm

Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by dlw322 »

www.actec.org

This site was recommended to me by vanguard. I found a very good estate planning attorney from this site
boggler
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Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2013 1:29 am

Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by boggler »

dlw322 wrote:http://www.actec.org

This site was recommended to me by vanguard. I found a very good estate planning attorney from this site
Where on that site do you search for lawyers?
J295
Posts: 3399
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2012 10:40 pm

Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by J295 »

In reply to the question about locating a lawyer on the actec site ..... Click on "fellows" and then on your state.
Pacific
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Location: Lost in the middle of the Pacific

Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by Pacific »

How to find a lawyer??

Look under the nearest rock.
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/ ... arning_on/

Actually, whenever I need to contact an attorney in another location, I call the Clerk of Courts, Prosecutor, or Public Defender and ask them, for instance, if they had to hire an attorney to prepare an estate plan, who would they hire. I've had pretty good luck using this approach.
stan1
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Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by stan1 »

bsteiner wrote:explaining why transfer on death is generally not a good idea
bsteiner, any hints on why TOD is generally not a good idea (let's assume for people who aren't subject to federal or state estate taxes)?

Thank you


Beerwolf, as a single person I had my end of life documents drawn up about five years ago for $800 by an attorney who was working out of her home while she raised her children. I found her by word of mouth. I talked to her at an initial consultation, decided she was a good match, and we went from there. She charged $150 for the initial consult, credited back to me if I decided to proceed with having her complete the documents. Moral of the story: low operating costs and paying more for the initial consult can help lower total cost.
Warning: I am about 80% satisficer (accepting of good enough) and 20% maximizer
bsteiner
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Location: NYC/NJ/FL

Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by bsteiner »

stan1 wrote:bsteiner, any hints on why TOD is generally not a good idea (let's assume for people who aren't subject to federal or state estate taxes)?
Except where the amount involved is small, our clients generally provide (in their Wills) for their children or other beneficiaries to receive their inheritance in trust rather than outright. That keeps the inheritance from being included in the beneficiary's estate, and protects it against the beneficiary's potential creditors, including current and future spouses, as well as Medicaid if a beneficiary ever goes into a nursing home. A TOD designation will defeat that.

Of course, where the amount involved is too small to warrant administering a trust for a beneficiary, then we would provide for the beneficiary to receive his/her share outright. In that case, a TOD designation might not cause any problems, assuming it's coordinated with the estate plan. Of course, it still has to be coordinated. We had one case where the Will contained several hundred thousand dollars of various cash bequests, with the balance going to a niece. The broker suggested naming the niece as TOD beneficiary of the largest account, leaving the estate without enough money to satisfy the cash bequests. Fortunately for the persons who would have received the cash bequests, the niece decided, on her own, to make gifts to the persons who would have received the cash bequests, to make them whole.
Rupert
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Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by Rupert »

I gotta disagree with the folks who suggest calling the local bar association for a referral. In my town, the "lawyer referral service" is by rotation, meaning every lawyer puts his/her name on the list as many times as possible and the bar association refers the next lawyer on the list (in a particular practice area) to members of the public who call asking for a referral. There's no controlling for quality on that list. The bar takes a lawyer's word for it when they say they are qualified to practice in a particular area. In my opinion, the lawyer referral service is the worst possible way to find a good lawyer. Word of mouth is the only reliable way.
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frugaltype
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Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by frugaltype »

Rupert wrote:I gotta disagree with the folks who suggest calling the local bar association for a referral. In my town, the "lawyer referral service" is by rotation, meaning every lawyer puts his/her name on the list as many times as possible and the bar association refers the next lawyer on the list (in a particular practice area) to members of the public who call asking for a referral. There's no controlling for quality on that list. The bar takes a lawyer's word for it when they say they are qualified to practice in a particular area. In my opinion, the lawyer referral service is the worst possible way to find a good lawyer. Word of mouth is the only reliable way.
+1 to this.

Same where I used to live. They referred me to someone who was so blatantly crooked that only a moron could not have detected this. Then he sent me a $200 bill for the "free" consultation (I did not pay it.) A few months later the newspaper had an article on his being brought up on criminal charges.
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Allocationist
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Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:32 pm

Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by Allocationist »

The Martindale web site has been helpful to me as a starting point. I like the Peer Review and Client Review features.

http://www.martindale.com/Find-Lawyers- ... Firms.aspx
MoonOrb
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Re: How to find a lawyer

Post by MoonOrb »

Rupert wrote:I gotta disagree with the folks who suggest calling the local bar association for a referral. In my town, the "lawyer referral service" is by rotation, meaning every lawyer puts his/her name on the list as many times as possible and the bar association refers the next lawyer on the list (in a particular practice area) to members of the public who call asking for a referral. There's no controlling for quality on that list. The bar takes a lawyer's word for it when they say they are qualified to practice in a particular area. In my opinion, the lawyer referral service is the worst possible way to find a good lawyer. Word of mouth is the only reliable way.
I came in here to say pretty much the same thing. Rupert is right on the money. "Contact the bar association" is only slightly better than throwing darts at the yellow pages and picking a name at random.

Here is the process for how to find a good lawyer:

(1) Ask any lawyer friend whose opinion you trust. If they don't do this kind of work, they probably know someone who does and who has a good reputation. Lawyers love to refer work to other lawyers--most work comes from referrals.

(2) If you have no lawyer friends or acquaintances who you could ask, pose the same question to your friends and acquaintances who work with lawyers that they highly recommend--even if these lawyers don't practice in estate planning. Then, when you've been connected with that lawyer, you ask them for a referral.

(3) Failing that, call any high quality law firm in your area. This is not nearly as good as going the first two routes, but in some cases if you call and they say "I'm sorry, we don't do that kind of work," then they will refer you to someone with a good reputation. This is still a superior method to calling the bar association.
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