hello
and welcome today we're going to talk
about 7 signs
you have a bad lawyer and what you can
do about it
this isn't a fun topic because i'd like
to think that my
fellow attorneys are all good and that
they all do
the right thing however that's just not
the case
the truth is there are
good attorneys bad attorneys
attorneys that aren't a good fit for you
and then they're just mediocre attorneys
so before we get started
if you're new here my name is taylor
darcy from think legal
where i help you create the business of
your dreams
so welcome happy to have you here and
i'm happy to discuss these
issues with you so that you can make the
best most informed decision
about your legal needs as well as
whether someone is a good fit for you
for counsel the the number one thing
that you need to be on the lookout for
is that
you want to make sure that
personality wise personality is very
important in
in having an attorney client
relationship because
they are going to be part of your life
depending on the type of attorney that
you have
for anywhere from a couple of months
uh maybe a month or two for or several
years so it really depends on
the case or the matter that you're
hiring them for
so you want to make sure that it's a
good personality thing and that brings
me to the one
the number one of the the first sign
if someone won't return or if an
attorney or a paralegal or someone that
is involved in the case doesn't
necessarily have to be the attorney a
lot of times depending on the setup
it'll be the legal assistant or the
paralegal
that will be answering your questions if
it's a solo then it'll be the attorney
so this applies to
the legal team not necessarily specific
to the attorney
if they don't return a phone call or
respond to an email within a reasonable
period of time
now this is very important that you keep
in mind that
reasonable may not be immediate if you
send them an email on a friday afternoon
or over the weekend and it's not urgent
so it doesn't nothing is going to change
based on the email it's not urgent
that needs to be responded to right away
and trust me when i say this your
definitive
definition of urgent versus their
definition of urgent may be two very
different things
so that you send them an email on a
friday afternoon or weekend
they may not get back to you monday or a
tuesday or wednesday depending on
and it just depends if how busy they are
how other emergent
things that are happening what other
clients that they're
already working with that are
challenging or difficult when i say
reasonable time period give them a
little bit of time don't don't expect
an answer immediately you know sometimes
that happens and i'm
i love it if i can answer someone's
email as quickly as possible but
sometimes i don't have an
answer for them and so i'm waiting not
because i didn't get the email
i'm waiting to give them an answer when
it means something rather than just
saying i don't have an answer
so you have to put that into
consideration when you're
looking at what you're doing for for
that
because the last thing you want to do is
number one annoy them and number two
annoy yourself by
trying to do something that just isn't
gonna happen at that time
if they're not getting back to you
reasonable so i mean i'm talking like a
week or two weeks
then that might be a sign that they're
not a good fit for you
okay but again your ex your needs need
to be reasonable it can't be
you know i i send you a text message
today uh
in the morning and if you don't get back
to me within an hour i'm i'm mad at you
that's just not fair to either party
that's not fair to yourself you're
setting yourself up for an unrealistic
expectation and to be disappointed the
next sign
that you've hired a bad lawyer is and
i've seen this before i've actually seen
this repeatedly
is if they miss a filing deadline
or they did not file your paperwork in a
reasonable time period
so it doesn't necessarily mean that it's
going to be immediate sometimes it takes
quite a bit of time to do something
depending on the complexity of the
matter
and how often they've filed those
things in the past it also depends on
the state
sometimes i'll submit something and it
it happens
so fast i'm just oh i'm so amazed i'm so
happy
so then i'm excited to be able to
give my clients the great news that
something exciting happened
in other instances they take way longer
than i'm expecting
and it's more difficult and it's more
challenging to be able to give them
my client any type of information in
that respect but if it's
if it's a behavioral thing not a time
thing so
some attorneys for whatever reason
procrastinate they don't
they missed a filing deadline they made
a mistake that's a sign that this might
not be a good attorney for you
it just depends i can't tell you what
that that's true or not true
so keep those types of thoughts in mind
the next thing
is if they over bill you now this is
important because
i've had clients in the past where
they the the attorney billed them seven
thousand dollars for a contract
that was just insane like the contract
was
not worth seven thousand dollars but
because they had spent
all this extra time on it it got
expensive quick
and i've seen this repeatedly where
people will come to me well this is too
expensive and i spent so much money on
this and it was just and you're right
it's not a good attorney when they do
that when they spend too much
i had a friend of mine ask me about a
bill from an attorney where
the guy literally left a 30-second
message on his answering machine
asking him to call him back and build
him a hundred dollars for it
and i'm like that's absurd i would
never ever ever charge to do that
because number one that's it within my
my purview to change or not change and
number two
the y you gave them nothing
you gave them no value a phone call back
and then you charge them again when they
call you
i know for me double dipping is is not
not cool not not acceptable so that's
something i would never ever do
even though hourly billing is is
difficult because of the way that it's
set up
so that's that's number three number
four and i've seen this before where
attorneys will give people false
platitudes to make them their clients
feel better
rather than telling the truth and the
truth is a lot of times you may not have
a case
or you may not have damages or enough
damages to make it worthwhile to file
now every case every matter is
fact specific so you can't think that
i'm giving i'm just giving a blanket
statement of
an attorney should under promise and
over deliver
and they should always they should never
guarantee any type of outcome like i'm
absolutely gonna get this for you or i'm
or this is what's absolutely gonna
happen because honestly he doesn't know
and any type of guarantee is
kind of just wishful thinking until you
get to the point where there's money
exchanging hands or
there's something given in court then it
just doesn't make sense to make any type
of promise
keep that type of thought process in
mind that
you you want your attorney to be as
honest and truthful as possible to you
and not just
giving you what you want to hear the
last thing you want to do is make a
decision on a case based on
verbal platitudes and wishful thinking
rather than the hard cold truth that
things are more expensive than you'd
hoped or that you may not have as good
of a case as you're
thinking you had the next thing in this
is kind of related to the last thing but
they're
different in that they over promise and
under deliver and
this is this is i see this happen
frequently
when there's a case matter where the
the client thinks they've got a great
case reality is they have an okay case
and then when you add opposing counsel
to it you have a bad case
and it's because there's always
something that the client leaves out and
isn't necessarily it's not that they're
lying it's just that it's not the
complete accurate truth
so when you're looking at it from that
perspective you want to make sure that
the attorney is giving you like
like hitting a low bar not a high
because it'd much easier to come back
and say i did better than what i was
expecting
than to say i did worse people will hear
that that that's how it went so you want
to make sure that you're
doing your under-promising and
over-delivering as opposed to an
attorney that is
over-promising and under-delivering and
you can kind of tell how they approach
it by
their interactions with you to make sure
that you're getting what you're looking
for and what you're needing
the next thing is and this is probably a
pretty dank big one
is that they're consistently rude to you
their legal assistant
paralegal or judge if they're rude to
anybody like that
number one they shouldn't be rude to
their their assistance for obvious
reasons because
that's who they're working with if
they're rude to you that's not a good
thing and
worse is if they're rude to the judge
because that can uh
bias the judge against you so that can
really harm your case and i don't know
too many attorneys that are rude like
that i've i've yet to see too many
i have some that are kind of kooky like
i had an attorney make uh
they wanted to put my client in jail
because she forgot some paperwork at
home
so you got to keep that in mind is that
the last thing you want is an attorney
that's rude to your judge
that is absolutely unacceptable i mean
rude to anybody in general but rude
to their judge is is horrific for your
case
that'll just tick off the judge and
potentially hurt you
later so please keep that in mind the
last thing that you want to make sure
that
or seventh sign of
a bad attorney is they won't send
regular updates about your case and this
has a lot to do with
communication it kind of ties in number
one
but of their own initiative are they
sending you
the information that you need in order
to make decisions about your case
and sometimes like i'm working on a case
right now where
i literally have nothing to tell my guy
because nothing's changed since the last
time we talked
now i could spend the time and send him
an update saying that but it's kind of
like
if there's something new i'll let you
know so but that's the thing is are they
initiating their own time
and doing the right thing to give you
what you need
as the client for the attorney and these
are all
things that again a lot of it more of it
has to do with personality and
you can't take an isolated incident
because as i was saying is
it needs to be consistently these things
the reason why is because every attorney
is human
every attorney has a bad day every
attorney has
something go wrong that they weren't
anticipating and it's not fair to judge
them by something that they couldn't
have anticipated
that was just so far out or that it was
difficult
maybe you know who knows maybe i mean
with covid19
this year you don't know if someone they
just that they love just passed away and
so they're doing the best they can what
they that they have
or the courts might be closed or there's
there's a lot of different reasons so
try to give your attorney the benefit of
the doubt
that they have your best interest at
heart most of the time
and that these if there's an occasional
aberration of
of quality that that's not indicative of
who they are
just like you want to be given the
benefit of the doubt give your attorney
the benefit of the doubt
they're only human and again they make
mistakes
and shouldn't you shouldn't hold them to
uh you know if they can correct the
mistake
great if they can't then talk about it
and that's that's really what we're
talking about here is that
except the fact that you know no one's
perfect and that your attorney will do
the best job that they can and these are
things to look for to see if they're not
doing as good of a job that they can
but it should be consistently bad right
it shouldn't be
outside the it shouldn't just be once in
a while and then expect them to be that
it's completely bad
now we're going to talk about the things
that you can do
to help you in this endeavor or this
difficulty because being at odds with
your attorney is never a good thing
we need to have a good line of
communication between you and
and our and us so that we can give you
the best legal advice
and so that we can represent you to the
best of our abilities nothing worse than
having a strained
attorney-client relationship so if for
some reason
these things aren't working or that
these are some signs that you saw that
you're like oh
man now i have to find a new attorney
well not necessarily
first schedule an appointment to talk
with them tell them about your concerns
give them the benefit of the doubt and
let them know that
you know you want to continue working
with them but this type of thing isn't
working for you
and ask them if there's anything that
they can do a lot of attorneys will have
it
outlined in their engagement agreements
certain things how they'll communicate
as well as
how you can get in contact with them
like making appointments that sort of
thing
so it really comes down to keeping that
communication open with your attorney to
make sure that it's
fair and it's that you're getting the
best representation as possible
but communication is key in that respect
you want to make sure that you're not
assuming anything that exists there or
doesn't exist there
next thing is if if the relationship
really is going
south and it's just like any other
relationship
you've communicated your grievances it
might be time to find a new attorney
and in this instance you want to ask
family or friends
that have worked with attorneys in the
past with the same or similar matters as
you've had
for referrals in order to get the best
attorney that might be a better fit than
the one that you're currently dealing
with
and it's never fun because you have to
transfer trust funds and transfer
files and there's there's a lot of
difficulty that goes with transferring
attorneys i'm not saying you can't do it
i'm just saying it shouldn't just be
done because
you didn't like one little thing that
they did because it can hurt your
case to have it transferred to someone
new the other thing you want to make
sure that you do is review
your contract with them for possible
remedies such as fee arbitration
if your fees are too much it depends on
the contract not every attorney puts
that in
i'm just saying it it exists there for a
reason
and gives you the opportunity to
air your grievances about their bills
because they can be substantial the
next thing that you can do is you can
file a complaint with the state bar
if their conduct is egregious when i say
egregious
it's got to be pretty bad or it can't
just be a difference of opinion or a
difference of personality
there needs to be some significant
malfeasance going on
for a complaint to the bar because
you're putting in question their
livelihood
and i'll be honest with you most
attorneys i know
are really good people they make really
good decisions they make good choices
they're doing the best they can with
what they have no case is perfect no
facts are perfect no
case is a slam dunk no matter is exactly
the same
the bar you know you've got to consider
that
it might be just an aberration on that
if there's that the two instances
is if the attorney messes with a client
files if you withhold them that's number
one
uh and or two if they mess with client
trust funds that's
number two that will hurt them the most
but
having a complaint about them on their
record for no reason
or because you just didn't like them is
it's petty and it's um it's unnecessary
right and you you have to consider that
it was a breakdown in the relationship
not necessarily something that you
should complain to the bar for
the last thing you should do if if it's
truly not working
you've you've thought about it and it
just doesn't make sense you can't find a
malpractice attorney
that can sue a an attorney
for legal malpractice now there are some
significant downsides to doing that
if there was a breakdown in the
attorney-client relationship
if you sue your attorney they can defend
themselves
with things that are in
your that would have remained
confidential
so if you tell your some your attorney
something in confidence
that could hurt your other case the last
thing you want
to do is then sue him because then that
could become a matter of public record
and the opposing counsel on the other
side would then have access to that
deposition
or that information in order because
it's a matter of
it could be a matter of public record in
that instance and so you want to think
long and hard
about suing your attorney for
legal malpractice and then the next
thing is the damages factor
if you're in the middle of a case right
now the the way that legal malpractice
works is you have to show that but for
their negligence you would have won the
case
so if you would have lost the case no
matter their negligence or not
then unfortunately you're not going to
win either way
so it's it's a hard burden
it's a hard standard to meet because it
typically is not
you know blatant forms of negligence and
enough to
push you back into losing so
so filing a legal malpractice suit
is as a huge gamble and it's gonna take
a lot of time
so you it's not something quick that
you're going to get
money immediately most won't settle most
will fight because their license is on
the line
and it very rarely or do people win
it's got to be pretty bad i mean really
really severely bad most don't
meet that burden and and i apologize
that's just the reality that's the truth
it's it's rare because most attorneys
are really good about covering
themselves
and protecting themselves and so just
like they try to protect our client
right when i'm reviewing a document my
goal is to protect my client
but now that you're suing me you know
i'm
you know if if you're going to sue
someone an attorney is
is challenging to sue for those reasons
these are all of the different ways
that you can have a bad attorney how you
can help it how you can fix it
and and these are some of the remedies
of what you can do
number one just be honest and upfront
with them be
truthful and accept that again they're
imperfect they make mistakes
and that you know holding it against
them may not be the smartest way to go
about it because of how difficult
the road would be to do it unless it's
very egregious
i hope you've if you've gotten value out
of this video please keep in mind that i
go live monday through friday
at 11 a.m except for on holidays
so i will not be here you know on
christmas
new year's that type of thing so please
keep that in mind don't forget to hit
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reminded and we'll talk to you later
have a good one
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you