All things being equal, the best attorneys out there are also the busiest ones and have more work and inquiries from potential clients than they can handle. Thefeore, they are also the pickiest ones, both because they have to be and because they can afford to be. Most of those great lawyers have come to a conclusion through expeirence and trial and error that they enjoy their work much more and get far better results for themselves and their clients when they represent the people they actually like and enjoy working with. There is not much you can do to make the facts of your case better except for doing the most thorough job gathering them. However, there are a few simple, specific things you can do to be a more attractive potential client to any good attorney:
- Be nice. As obvious as this sounds, it still needs to be emphasied that no one likes working with people who are angry, overly demanding or entitled. You might have many reasons to be angry at the potential opposing side in your legal dispute, but you have no reason to and there is no benefit in channeling that anger toward the lawyers you are speaking with regarding representing you. Lawyers often decide that they won’t be able to work with a potential client a few minutes into their initial conversation and before they even hear their story, just because of their bad attitude on the phone, that all too often starts with “I am shopping for a lawyer” or “I am interviewing lawyers”.
- Don’t have unreasonable expectations. Lawyers are being taught to look out for red flags in potential clients. Unreasonable expectations is one of the biggest such red flags. Thefore, your conversation with a lawyer should not start with “I have a $20 million dollar case” or “my case is slam dunk” or “I am sure the other side will settle quickly because they don’t want any bad publicity”. You can’t possibly know any of that, so why even bring that up? You may think that these words market your case to potential lawyers, but they achieve the opposite result – creating skepticism about both your case and your attitude toward your case. Instead, once you share the facts of your case and answer taht lawyer’s questions, you should ask them what they think of your case, and what they believe the potential strengths and weaknesses of your case are.
- Be brief and to the point. Most cases can initially be summarized in a few paragraphs or in under a minute on the phone. The more concise you are, at least in the beginning of talking to any lawyer, the more obvious it is that you will be easier to work with, and you will potentially be a better witness in trial. So many email inquiries from potential clients to lawyers go unanswered simply becuase they get lost due to being way too long and convoluted. There is no reason to send a 20-page summary of your case to attorneys. Any case can be summarized in one page. And, the stronger your case is, the easier it would be for you to prepare that type of short summary. For instance, one simple, effective way to summarize your wrongul terminating case inquiry is as follows: “I was fired from X company after working there for 15 years. I was most recently making $175k / year. One week after requesting a reasonable accommodation to my diagnosed capral tunnel synrome, I was fired. The reason for the firing by the employer was that I am no longer “a team player”. Please contact me to discuss”. – as simple as that.
- Have the necessary tech set-up to pursue a case and be prompt in your communication with lawyerrs. If it takes you a week to respond to an email and several weeks to provide the documents requested by an attorney, because you don’t have good internet, your scanner is broken, you can’t find a fax machine anywhere neare where you live, etc., while they are evaluating your case and before they even filed any type of claim on your behalf, this will really discorage them from working with you because of these types of delays. The lawyer will inevitably start questioning how serious you are about pursuing your case and how committed you will be to the process. On the other hand, if you respond to emails and phone calls prompltly, and provide the documents requested within a few days, this shows both – your commitment and motivation to pursue your case and also the fact that communication will not be an issue in working with you, making your lawyer’s job easier and more effective.
- Don’t worry about little things but focus on the big picture. No case is perfect, especially when it comes to employment cases, and yours is not an exception. Every case has facts that make it stronger and weaker, and that’s perfectly fine. You and your attorney might have limited time and resoures, and you may not be able to uncover every piece of evidence before trial or hire every type of expert that could potentially enhance your case, and that’s ok. We have to work with what we have and make the most out of what we have. You should be focusing on the bigger picture. Does your case make sense? Does it reflect real physical / emotional injury and bad conduct on the part of the opposing side? Is it simple enough for the judge / jury to understand? Also, don’t worry about a type that your attorney might make here and there in the documents. We all have typos in our writing, especially when we face the pressure of working on several projects at the same time and tight deadlines. Cases are not won or lost on the basis of punctuation or perfectly error-free writing. They are won on compelling facts that fit into the relevant law in an effective way that convinces the fact finder that you deserve compensation.