How can you get your attorneys to do what they were hired to do?

Answer 1

You don't hire a lawyer and then tell him/her what to do. You hire a layer to tell you the law and the best way to deal with a legal problem.

If you are advised wrongly, you have redress via the law society (in the UK), other countries have similar bodies.

The best way is to write a letter to the Attorney General's office and send a copy to Attorney General's office of a letter you sent to State Bar Association about the grievance you are having with attorney. The Attorney General's office will contact the State Bar about the attorney in question. In some states 3 of these grievances can result in pulling an attorney's license.

Prior posts have really hit the primary issue on the head - open and informed communication. While your attorney has certain obligations to you, as his/her client, you must remember that the attorney, first and foremost, has ethical and professional responsibilities to his/her profession. Oftentimes, clients have unrealistic or impossible expectations. While it is part of the attorney's job to properly inform the client of what to expect, oftentimes, clients are too emotionally and psychologically embroiled in the issues to see things objectively.

Your question is a little vague, which may result in you not getting the answer for which you are looking. Without providing too many specific details about the case, it would be helpful if you could clarify what it is you are trying to accomplish, or what it is that your attorney is not doing, that you think they should be.

Perhaps your idea of what should or can be done, is not what actually can be accomplished in the legal sense. Having an open discussion about expectations and reality is the best option. If that fails, one can always "fire" legal counsel and find someone they feel better represents their interests. As to retainers, fees, etc. they would be addressed in the contract, as to what if any might be recoverable.

THIS IS A BIG ISSUE FOR ME--The best way to get a lawyer to do what you hired them to do is to be patient and to educate yourself. There are so many lawyers out there that the legal profession is turning more and more into a service industry. Just like with any service industry if the customer demands better service or products there are only two choices: deliver, or lose the business.

Hopefully, you are not your lawyer?s only client. There are other people who also are concerned about their own case. So your lawyer may not be able to speak to you when you want them. If you can be patient, be honest and forthcoming with your lawyer, and engage them on an intelligent level you will get positive results.

Your lawyer may have the knowledge, but you have the money. Get educated as to your rights; most state/city/county bar associations have websites that will inform you as to YOUR rights. Contact the local bar association and learn your rights as a client. Your lawyer may be obligated by state law to provide you with a written copy of your rights as a client.

Once you learn your rights you can then engage the lawyer on somewhat more equal footing. Demand to see billing records and time slips; demand to see correspondence between your lawyer and the adversary; demand to see copies of papers (motions, demands, etc.) filed with the court; ask your lawyer to prepare memorandum for you explaining the issue and the law.

Demand better legal services or take you business elsewhere. If you are poor then I am sorry because the law will be of little help to you.

Perspective

I am an attorney, but I did not become an attorney until I was forty years old, some twenty-plus years ago, so I have some perspective from both sides of the issue. Before I was an attorney, I had minimal experience with lawyers - primarily from a divorce proceeding to which I was an unwilling party - but my perspective on lawyers prior to becoming one is quite a bit different than it is now. For one thing, I have discovered that for a person who has personality flaws prior to becoming a lawyer, the power and authority granted by a law license exacerbates his/her personality flaws. If a person tends to be a bully before becoming a lawyer, he/she will quite likely be a bully as a lawyer. And this bullying is imposed upon everyone - opposing lawyers, co-workers and staff, as well as clients. Unfortunately, it's not always possible to know if a particular lawyer has these tendencies prior to hiring her/him, unless you can get input from others or from the state bar association, which in many states keeps track of complaints filed against lawyers. However, as pointed out by others, the client can fire an attorney and hire another one so long as the fired attorney is paid for any work she/he can prove was done for the client. Few clients seem to realize that they have the power to change attorneys, but it's absolute.

The other side of the coin is this: A certain percentage of clients expect their lawyer to accomplish things that cannot be accomplished. A good attorney should put a client's case into perspective for the client early on, so as not to create unrealistic expectations, but even then, some clients refuse to believe that their attorney cannot accomplish things that cannot be done. Another disturbing aspect of difficult clients is that segment of clients that want his/her attorney to actually inflict punishment and/or abuse on the other party or parties to a lawsuit. For these folks, it's not enough to just have the lawyer adequately and professionally represent them, they want their lawyer to abuse and/or destroy the other party. Although this type of activity is - under the Rules of Professional Conduct - unethical for a lawyer, if these clients have money to pay for this type of abusive activity, they can usually find one of the bullying attorneys mentioned earlier to make everybody's life miserable in the course of a lawsuit. However, for the competent attorney who merely wants to do a good job of representation and appropriately represent his/her clients, trying to talk some sense to these folks borders on the impossible, causing frustration by both attorney and client. For these reasons, before agreeing to represent a client, an attorney should be very careful to determine if the potential client's expectations are realistic.

Lastly, when I was a new lawyer, an older and wiser lawyer told me that he'd never seen a lawyer have a complaint filed against him/her where the lawyer sincerely cared about the client - which includes taking the client's phone call or returning the call at the earliest opportunity. I believe this to be true. I have always tried to treat my clients as I'd like to be treated if I were the client, and although I have not always obtained the result that my client wanted, I have never had a client file a complaint with the bar association, or even express disappointment in my representation.