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Don?t Treat Your Lawyer Like a Button

The very funny title leads into a very, very interesting blog post from BlawgIT. I love it also because it ties in with what law librarians say all the time:

Don't Treat Your Law Librarian Like a Lawyer! Law librarians know and teach legal research. If you have a legal problem, ask a law librarian how to research it. If you want a solution to your legal problem, hire a lawyer!

But hear it from a lawyer:

Don?t Treat Your Lawyer Like a Button

?? While the ?I don?t need a receipt for my doughnut? mentality is fine for most transactions, it is not the best way to find the best lawyer for you. You want the relationship. Unfortunately, it is a little more difficult to find a lawyer with whom you can develop a relationship with, than randomly picking names out of the phonebook.

When I provide a referral to another lawyer, I typically provide multiple names. All of them can do the job, but I advise the clients to interview each of them and select the lawyer with whom they feel most comfortable. If they like the lawyer, and the lawyer likes them, there is a far greater chance the discussions will be more open and fruitful. As the relationship develops, the lawyer learns subtleties about the client?s means and goals which will help tailor the legal work to that particular client?.

Good lawyers are not buttons. They are advisers, defenders, mediators and most importantly, people. If you go looking for a button to bypass these benefits, you risk losing the most important aspect of the attorney/client relationship?.? (read full post)

(And, here is my guide on How to Find a Lawyer.)

(Thanks to Jim Calloway, who linked to another post by Brent Trout, which made me want to read his other posts.)

Full post as published by Oregon Legal Research on March 13, 2009 (boomark / email).