How to Find a Lawyer

When I was 20 years old, I saw the movie Scarface, with Al Pacino. The idea of trafficking in cocaine looked exciting. I called acquaintances I had in Miami. Before long, I orchestrated sales in multiple-kilogram quantities. I coordinated people to transport cocaine across the country. Foolishly, I convinced me that since I didn’t handle the cocaine myself, I wasn’t really breaking the law.

As a precaution, long before I got caught, I hired a criminal defense lawyer. But I didn’t have any idea on how what questions I ask to hire a lawyer. As a result, I gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to a lawyer who told me what I wanted to hear, rather than what I needed to hear.

In my case, the result of hiring the wrong lawyer translated into a 45-year prison term. Don’t make the same mistake. Learn everything possible about the steps you should take. Learn how to find the right lawyer.

My partner, Justin Paperny, describes some similar challenges. He had been working as a stockbroker and he’d never been in trouble before. In Lessons from Prison, Justin reveals some of his bad decisions. By not understanding how to hire a lawyer, he flushed tens of thousands down the drain. When he wasn’t honest with his lawyer, he put himself in a worse position, exposing him to significantly harsher punishment.

Our team interacts with thousands of people that face challenges with both civil and criminal law-enforcement agencies. Perhaps a story about Darren, one of our clients, may illustrate the challenge that people face when they don’t quite know how to find a lawyer. 

Hiring a Lawyer: 

Darren had been in business for more than a decade and he worked with corporate lawyers extensively. He contacted our team when he realized that some of his decisions on the job were about to expose him to problems with regulatory agencies, and possibly to challenges with the Department of Justice.

Darren’s problem reminded me of my own challenges. As I wrote in Lessons from Prison, I was a stockbroker at UBS when I learned that some of my decisions brought me to the attention of officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission. I knew that I needed a lawyer, but I didn’t know how to find a lawyer.

When authorities like the SEC, the FCC, the FTC, or the FDA start asking questions about how to hire a lawyer. 

Use Contacts: 

Check with people you know who have had experience in working with criminal defense lawyers. Learn from their experiences. If you know someone who has been to prison, ask them what they heard about their experiences of working with criminal defense lawyers. 

Learn about the costs before making a hiring decision. 

Any defendant searching to find a lawyer may want to research the lawyer’s area of expertise. If a lawyer has extensive experience in a given area, that lawyer may be more familiar with case law, statutes, arguments, and decisions that could prove beneficial.

Consider questions to ask before you speak with the lawyer.

• About each lawyer’s rate for billable hours,
  • Important to know so a defendant can get an idea of how much to budget. In some cases, a lawyer may be able to resolve a plea negotiation and guilty plea in less than 100 billable hours, preparing for trial in federal court would likely require several hundred billable hours.

 

• About the lawyer’s position on accepting a flat fee for the entire case,
  • A flat fee may or may not serve the interest of the defendant. Every case is different. On the plus side, a defendant that has a flat fee knows exactly how much to budget. On the negative side, a lawyer that receives a flat fee may be disinclined to devote much time to the case after he is paid.

• About the types of cases, he or she practiced,
  • A lawyer that specializes in defending tax cases may not be the best fit for a defendant facing criminal charges related to mail fraud that could result in the loss of liberty.

 

• About the lawyer’s expertise in sentencing matters,
  • More than 75 percent of the people that face charges in federal court eventually have a sentencing hearing. What level of expertise does the prospective lawyer have with sentencing in the given jurisdiction?

 

• About the size of the lawyer’s team,
  • A lawyer with a large team may be able to outsource work to associates or paralegals that bill at a lower hourly rate. The lawyer will have discretion, but it’s helpful to know that the lawyer is cost-conscious of a defendant’s resources.

 

• About the lawyer’s philosophy on communication with clients,
  • Some lawyers make themselves readily available to defendants, even providing cell-phone numbers for communication. Other lawyers prefer to work independently, leaving defendants out of the communication loop.
• About whether the lawyer would be receptive to accepting a 5-hour retainer to get started, just to see if a good fit exists for a productive working relationship.
  • Some lawyers will not get started on a case without a minimum retainer. In federal cases, that initial retainer often exceeds $50,000. As Jim experienced, it’s difficult to make an assessment on an initial free consultation.

If you’re searching to find a lawyer, create a plan.

To the extent that it’s possible, create a series of questions that will help you gauge whether the attorney is the right fit for you. It’s important to be honest about your current situation and what you expect. If you go into a meeting with a lawyer and minimize your conduct, you may set yourself up for a bad outcome.

Brian, for example, was a director with a large financial services company. His employer had an insurance policy for “officers and directors.” The policy would pay legal fees for people in specific positions. When federal authorities indicted Brian, he hired an experienced white-collar criminal defense attorney that would send all bills to the insurance company. The law firm launched a scorched-earth defense strategy, and quickly burned through the $500,000 cap on legal fees. When that insurance bill expired, the lawyers told Brian that he should plead guilty and that he would be responsible for the remainder of his bill—which amounted to an additional $75,000.

“I always knew that at the end of the day, I was going to plead guilty,” Brian told me. “When I went to find a lawyer, I went along with what they said. They wanted to contest every document. But every time they read a document, they charged exorbitant fees. There bills showed that I was burning through more than $20,000 on legal fees some days.”

If it’s true that Brian knew he would eventually plead guilty, when he looked to find a lawyer, he may have been better suited to find an attorney with a strong track record of making great plea deals.

At the end of the day, any defendant that needs to learn how to find a lawyer should follow the path that Darren pursued.

To the extent possible, use contacts to ascertain the expertise, honesty, and competence of lawyers with regard to specific types of cases, in a specific jurisdiction. Approach those lawyers with a list of questions that will help you determine if you think that you work well together. To the extent possible, ask the lawyer to accept a limited engagement to test the waters. Most importantly, make certain that you have the financial resources available to support the decision you make.