How to Find a Family Attorney

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Pin ItArticle EditDiscussA family attorney is an attorney who represents your entire family in any personal or small business legal matters that arise. Family attorneys commonly assist clients with things such as estate and tax planning, prenuptial agreements, and business formations. Finding a good family attorney can be difficult because of the wide range of skills one must have. If you are in need of a family attorney, find a good one by following the steps below.

Edit Steps1Think about what you may need your family attorney to do. Not all families will require the same types of legal services from their family attorney. The first step in finding the attorney that is right for your family, therefore, is determining what types of services your family attorney may need to provide. Some services that you may want your family attorney to provide include:Estate planning. Estate planning includes drafting and executing financial and healthcare powers of attorney, setting up and managing trusts, and drafting and executing Living Wills and Last Wills and Testaments.Drafting of pre- and post- marital agreements. Many family law attorneys help protect the family’s assets by drafting pre and post marital agreements for members who are getting married or are just recently married.Tax planning and advice. While tax evasion is illegal, tax planning, planning ahead and moving/spending/saving money in a way that minimizes your taxes is legal and something with which many may want their family attorney to assist them.Small business formations and agreements. Families who operate small business may need a family attorney to draft various business agreements and assist them with corporate formations, minutes, and other business documents.Adoptions and guardianships. Adding new family members through adoption and/or caring for elderly or disabled family members through guardianships is a part of life for many, and you may want your family attorney to be able to assist with this type of proceeding should the need arise.Criminal defense. Many families prefer a family attorney who can assist with traffic tickets, code violations, and other minor criminal matters.2Decide in what county or parish your attorney should practice. While many believe that an attorney from a big city is best, that is not usually the case. Generally, an attorney who works in the county where the litigation or legal work is located is best. This is because he or she will be familiar with the other attorneys, Judges, and Court staff as well as any local rules, which may affect procedure. Therefore, you should choose a county or parish where most of your legal issues are located, such as in the county where you live or own a business.3Make a list of the qualified attorneys in your area. You can locate qualified attorneys in the area you have chosen in a number of ways:Check the yellow pages of the phone book. Many attorneys place ads in the phone book, which list their areas of expertise. The attorney section of your phone book may also be divided into different categories of practice, so that you can find the attorneys who practice the type(s) of law your family may need.Use an online directory. Many websites offer searchable directories of attorneys. Popular directories include Lawyers.com, LawInfo, and FindLaw.Check local business listing websites. Many websites such as Yahoo Local, Yellow Pages, Yelp, and Merchant Circle provide searchable local listings.Run a search using your favorite search engine. Use your favorite search engine to search for attorneys in your area.4Locate the website of each attorney on your list. To do this, go to your favorite search engine and search the names on your list one at a time. Some tips for searching include:Place each name that you search in quotation marks. For example, search for “John Doe” not John Doe.Include the name of your state in your search. For example, if you are looking for attorney John Doe in Wisconsin, search “’John Doe’ and Wisconsin”.Add additional search terms. If you need to further narrow your results in order to locate the name on your list, add the word ‘attorney’ to your search. For example, “attorney and ’John Doe’ and Wisconsin”. You may also want to try adding the name of your county or parish or the word lawyer to your search terms.5Review each attorney’s website. Your goal while reviewing each site is to eliminate names from your list of qualified family attorneys. Some things you may want to look for when determining which names to cross off include:Grammar and spelling errors. Anyone can miss a typo or a comma when proofreading something they have written, but a service provider, such as an attorney, who is serious about providing a quality service, will not let much slide past them. A real professional’s website should be well written, free of spelling and grammatical errors, and sound intelligent and professional.Qualifications. Every attorney has a bachelor degree (“B.S.”), a law degree (“J.S.”), and is a member of the state Bar Association. Beyond that, you may want to look for information about what school each attorney attended, what professional associations each belongs to, and what areas of law he or she practice.Quality of the site and information provided. A professional who cares about the quality of his or her service, will also care about the quality of their website. They will provide information that is helpful to potential clients, not just advertising blurb, and a phone number.6Make some appointments. Make an appointment with each of the attorneys remaining on your list. If any of them do not offer free initial consultations, you may want to cross them off your list without meeting with them. It is generally not wise to agree to pay someone for his or her time until you have been given the opportunity to interview him or her for the job. Any reputable attorney will meet with you for a minimum of thirty minutes free of charge.7Prepare for your appointments. You should think of each initial consultation with an attorney as a job interview, after all, you are interviewing them for the position of your attorney. To prepare for the interview:Write a job description. Before you can interview someone for a job, you must know exactly what the job will entail. Writing a job description will help you identify the skills and knowledge necessary to perform the job of your family’s attorney.Make up a list of questions to ask. Prepare a list of questions to ask during the interview. Your questions should attempt to illicit answers that will help you decide who to hire. For example, if estate planning is important to you and will be a large part of your family attorneys’ work, you may want ask specific questions about each attorney’s estate planning experience and how they might help with your estate plan.Gather everything you will need. Along with your list of questions and job description, you will want to bring a notepad and pen so that you can take notes during the interview.8Meet with each attorney and take notes. Record your initial reaction to each attorney, and his or her staff, so that you will have that information later, when you narrow down your list of job candidates.9Revise your list. Review your initial consultation notes and then narrow down your list of qualified family attorneys by crossing off any who made you uncomfortable, did not answer all of your questions, charged too much, or you simply did not like.10Get a second opinion. When choosing a family attorney, you do not have to rely solely on your instincts. Get second or third opinions about each attorney remaining on your list. You can do this by:Talking to friends and family. Ask friends, co-workers, and family members about the attorneys they have used in the past, and find out who they like and dislike, and more importantly, why.Looking for online reviews. Strangers can sometimes be just as helpful as friends and family when looking for a second opinion about any particular lawyer. Check for online reviews at website such as Lawyers.com, Yahoo Local, and YellowPages.com offer online reviews of local businesses.Checking attorney disciplinary records. Look to see if any of the attorneys remaining on your list have ever been disciplined by the state bar association by following the link for your state at FindLaw’s Researching Attorney Discipline page.Looking to see if the [1] Better Business Bureau (“BBB”) has receiving any complaints.11Make a selection. Choose a new family attorney from the names remaining on your list. Some things you may want to consider include:Fees. Hourly rates for attorneys in the same county or parish, practicing the same type of law should be about the same. If any of the attorneys with whom you met charge much more or less than the others, you may want to cross them off your list.Expertise. Remember, your family attorney should have a variety of skills and practice areas.Personality. You want employees who you like and with whom you feel comfortable. You may be spending a lot of time with your attorney over the years, and should not hire anyone you do not like.

Edit Related wikiHowsHow to Find a Good Family Law AttorneyHow to Hire a Lawyer When You Have Low IncomeHow to Get a Court Appointed AttorneyHow to Find an Attorney in New York

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