Why stay with your lawyer

The lawyer/client relationship is a personal one and there are many reasons which will dictate who you can and cannot work with. If you don’t like your lawyer, should you change? Ultimately, the relationship between a lawyer and client must be built on mutual trust. Having said that, it can be common for clients to switch lawyers and shop for both advice and a personality that they perceive will suit their particular needs. Sometimes it is worthwhile to think before changing. Here are a few reasons why.

If you are consulting a lawyer the odds are that something has gone wrong. You have been accused of a criminal offence, something is wrong at work or a commercial transaction has gone pear shaped. Changing lawyers is not going to change that. The law, your situation and resources will all remain the same. Unfortunately the cost of services is seen by many as the primary criteria for selecting a lawyer. Legal advice and representation are looked at as a commodity and one size fits all. This is inaccurate because clients only pay more or less for professional assistance based on performance, integrity, trust and results. Generally speaking the cheaper the lawyer the poorer the advice and the less certain the result. Realistically advice is only worth what you pay for it and no one treasures a cheap nasty experience which leads disappointment and possibly gaol. No one can afford to take such risks!

A good professional advisor may tell you things that you do not want to hear. Your lawyer is required by law to look after your interests. Your lawyer owes a duty of care to provide you with the best possible legal advice. A good lawyer should provide a robust practical opinion concerning your prospects. This is what you are paying for. This will inevitably mean telling you about the problems and limitations of your situation. This is often confronting but it allows clients to plan accordingly. Sometimes clients retain one lawyer for the bail application and because they are threatened or hear that X or Y is good decide they would be better off elsewhere. In these cases where they make the change these clients often crash and burn because what is good for one person is often not good for another as the person making the referral highly exaggerates the other lawyer’s competency. The referrer over promises, the other lawyer under delivers and the client bears the consequences. Everyone needs to look at who is the referrer and whether this person is just another bush lawyer who is uninformed and is a legend in their own lunchtime.

It is not uncommon for client to shop for advice. You should not necessarily take the lawyer who is the most optimistic about your problem. A lawyer’s initial optimism is more likely to indicate a desire to attract you as a client, the inadequate instructions you have provided and or a lack of professionalism. A lawyer who makes you feel relaxed about a serious problem is being helpful but they must demonstrate that they can act in your long term best interests. Some lawyers tell clients what they want to hear leading them up the garden path and leave them stranded when they get out of their depth. This is a very threatening experience. Be wary of those who comb the gaol system for clients as this tends to be a measure of their competence.

The legal system is imperfect and you need someone who understands this. A good lawyer will attempt to protect you from some of the known pit falls and assist you in achieving the best result. This will not have much to do with your initial expectations. Any form of litigation is inherently a risk; even the strongest case can come unstuck and be expensive to conduct. Remember you are consulting a lawyer because you have a problem that you cannot deal with yourself. If you become an advocate in your own cause then you have a fool for a client because even the best lawyers find the vagaries of the system challenging at best. What everyone must remember is you need to obtain the best legal advice you can afford and to prejudice your chances of obtaining the best possible outcome by following the advice of someone to change advisors where they bare no risk is dangerous.

Any lawyer will charge you money. You also get what you pay for.   Lawyers seek to recover their costs and routinely sue clients for unpaid fees.  If you repeatedly change lawyer your legal costs will be significantly higher. You will have to pay some of the costs associated with the new lawyer familiarizing him or herself with your matter and redoing some tasks. More importantly, the job will more likely not get done properly. There will be a lack of continuity, opportunities for mishaps and misunderstandings. Your problem will be crisis rather than expertly managed. The projected outcome needs to be effectively managed overtime to secure the best possible outcome and to minimize the consequences for clients. Clients should only change lawyers where it is obvious they are not up to standard and have demonstrated a real lack of competence.

A common final conversation with clients goes something like this ‘thank you very much for everything you have done for me. I hope I never see you again.’ This is simply because the context of the relationship is a crisis that is always going to be painful. Changing the scenery does not change reality.