One of the most important factors in having a successful attorney-client relationship (and just about any other relationship) is trust. Not establishing basic trust with your attorney will make the whole process of working on your case more difficult and stressful, no matter what your case is about. You will be doubting your lawyer’s work, his competence, and his advice to you. There is also a significant chance that you will have a dispute with your attorney, and you will be forced to look for new representation, which is often a challenge, especially when your case has already been filed and you are in the middle of litigation.
Here are three simple things you can do to increase the likelihood of having a trusting relationship with your attorney.
1. Ideally, you want to find an attorney through word of mouth. When your trusted friend, colleague, or relative highly recommends an attorney based on their personal experience of working with that attorney, this alone should give you a lot of confidence that this is likely a good attorney for you. It’s much better than relying on fancy websites that some attorneys have, billboards, or even online reviews, many of which are known to be fake anyway.
2. Have at least one face-to-face meeting or at least a Zoom meeting with your attorney when you start working on any type of case together. I myself had no idea until just a couple of years ago how many clients not only never get to see their lawyers but they never even get to talk to them on the phone – not even once. Everything is done through a secretary paralegal and other support staff from the very beginning. How can you rely on someone’s work if you don’t even know who they are? Lawyers, of course, don’t like when their clients call them every day for no good reason and that’s understandable, but it’s not too much to ask to talk to your lawyer directly in the beginning of your representation and also when making any important decision in your case, such as amending the lawsuit with new claims or dismissing some claims, making a settlement offer / responding to settlement offer going to mediation, etc…. It’s also possible that during your initial interaction with a lawyer, you will really dislike him for all kinds of possible reasons. Maybe he is arrogant, or too impatient with you, maybe he doesn’t appear to know the relevant law well enough to work on your case, maybe he takes weeks to respond to an email, or maybe you simply don’t like his personality. Why should you be working on a case with someone for many months who you don’t like as a person?
3. Ask your lawyer the “why” questions. Ask him to explain things to you. Why do I have a case? Why is my case strong and worth pursuing? What are the weaknesses/challenges in my case and why, and how can we together address these issues to make the case stronger? Why are we doing this or that as a next step in the case? When your lawyer explains to you not only what needs to be done but why, you will be much more at ease about the whole process and you will also be able to see that your lawyer is knowledgeable in the subject area, which should make you all the more comfortable working with him or her.