Becoming A Lawyer

TIP 3 Reasonable Expectations

One of the greatest errors of several lawyers is their inability to establish reasonable expectations for their clientele. Notification clients what they want to hear instead of what is very likely to be reality is going to lead to money and time wasted and spending the rest of the case trying to bring the client back. Better to tell the bad news from the start and whatever you can do to improve upon this position to the customer will make you.

TIP 10 Educating Your Clients

Give your customer the value of your experience and expertise by providing them with information which is pertinent to his or her case. By purchasing materials such as brochures, tapes or books that are related to your subject of law, this can be achieved easily and inexpensively. It is also possible to give your clients stuff from your library, either as a backup or online. You may also supply clients with sites or phone numbers where they can obtain the information . (Although this last source is invaluable, most customers have a tendency to overlook them and watch them as less precious than really receiving hard copies of materials out of you.)

TIP 21 Return of Original Records

When you have completed a file, return first documents to your client. You will not have to store them and you shift the client the responsibility for safekeeping.

TIP 6 Mutual Consultation

Similar to the tip above on being exclusive, another approach to exclusivity would be to make it clear at the very first interview with a prospective family law client that it is a mutual consultation. That is, the client is consulting you and you're consulting with with the client to be able to find out whether the both of you are a match. This makes it significantly simpler to say no if, in the close of the interview, some of those hairs on the back of your neck have gone upward. One of the frustrations in household law is behaving for customers that are difficult. Most high conflict cases involve people. They can be the ruin of your own life and make practicing more challenging than it must be. You need to make it apparent on a first consultation that the objective of the interview is to determine if there is a fit between the attorney and the client and that there's to be no duty on either side to either retain the lawyer or take a retainer. Accordingly, it seems that when it becomes clear from the very first interview that there are a number of reasons why you shouldn't take the situation, you need to learn how to say "no" at the very earliest possible phase.

TIP 11 Client Financial Disclosure Acknowledgment

It's essential to be extremely clear with clients that financial disclosure is the foundation upon which settlement in family law is accomplished. Some counsel even have their customers complete a client disclosure acknowledgment type confirming all disclosure pertinent to this situation.

TIP 5 Be Exclusive

When interviewing customers at your first meeting, many attorneys try hard to impress their customers to acquire the file. Try turning the tables and create yourself exclusive. In essence, the customer is being interviewed by the attorney and the lawyer determines whether or not she or he will be taking on this customer. Unless the customer meets with the criteria the matter will not be just accepted by the attorney.