It is time for another lawyer talk.

Q And A Steve Palmer here from Loritalk podcast.

Check us out, Loritalkpodcast.com. Q and A means question and answer.

That means we are taking questions and providing answers.

Imagine that if you have a question, in other words, and you submit

it@talkpodcast.com, we will supply an answer right here on the podcast.

Boy, how neat is that?

I'm doing something I'm not going to disguise what I'm doing here.

I am sort of making this question up

based, but it's not completely out of whole cloth.

I'm making it up based on

some experiences and some discussions I've had recently with potential clients.

And it has to do with choosing a lawyer

and cost of representation in a criminal case.

So you would ask, where do the curves cross?

Am I getting what I pay for?

Does it make sense to hire the most

expensive attorney, or should I just go cheap, or should I go middle of the road?

What do I do? Well, this is like so many questions in

the legal profession, it sort of all depends.

But let me sort of break it down this way.

I have a very close friend in the professional services industry, and he

once made this comment about somebody who was complaining about another professional

not calling them back within the same day or not getting Zack, whatever it was.

And it wasn't an unreasonable lack of communication.

It was just like not Johnny on the spot type communication.

And my friend, the professional just said, look, when you hire good professionals and

it doesn't mean just like lawyers and accountants.

I'm just not talking white collar professionals.

I'm talking like professionals.

Whether it's a plumber, whether it's a

mechanic, whether it's construction, whatever it would be.

When you are good people, they're busy and they're busy for a reason.

They're busy because they're good.

So there's some logic to this notion that you don't necessarily want the person

who isn't busy because they're probably not busy for a reason.

Now, that's not always true, though.

You could get somebody an attorney, for instance, at the stage in their career

where they get to pick and choose where they get to say, you know what?

I don't need the money anymore.

I'm doing this for my own edification.

And I'm going to take cases that I like and only those that I like.

And that's going to keep me just busy enough not to watch cartoons all day long

or old Matlock reruns, but instead I can just enjoy my last years in my career.

Or, for instance, you might get somebody who is a young whipper snapper, somebody

who is just starting their career that isn't busy yet, but still quite good.

Now that's a rare bird, because in order

to get quite good, whatever that means, it usually takes experience.

But you might find somebody a couple of years into their career who is willing to

put lots and lots and lots of time and energy into a case for the experience of

it and to make his or her name I did that, yours truly.

That's how I started my career.

I would take cases that I would never

otherwise get hired on for a normal going rate because I wanted to go get my chops.

I wanted to show the world that I could do this job

and I wanted to learn and I wanted to get the experience.

So I was trying murder cases for next to

nothing and working my tail off to do it because I wanted to have the opportunity

to not only help the person I was helping, but also to get the experience.

And it didn't mean I didn't know what I was doing.

It just meant that I didn't have quite the experience yet.

But again, that's a rare bird.

All too often you have attorneys who are

very experienced, who still suck, and then you have attorneys who

are just starting out and they think that they're good and they aren't.

So how do you figure it out?

Is it worth what you pay for?

So I would say generally, yes, if you take some steps to vet the attorney

and make sure that you're not just hiring on a gut on a flash.

Because by flash, I mean like a fancy website or something like that,

you want to get an attorney the best one you can afford.

Who knows what they're doing?

And here's what I mean by that.

I am doing several court of appeals cases

right now where the one I'm going to talk about is not around here.

So it's not involved anybody local.

But the attorney had been practicing for a

number of years and did what I will classify as a horrible job.

I mean, I'm talking really poor to the

point where below standards of any reasonableness, as far as I can tell.

And on the face of it, there was a

good website, everything was there, but just a terrible job.

And clearly

the attorney didn't understand the basics of some trial practice stuff, didn't

understand the basics of strategy, didn't understand one simple fact.

I often tell

prospective clients when I defend them, it's like there are certain cases where

you can take, meaning me, the lawyer, the defense can take nothing for granted.

Everything is a dog fight, every single inch you have to scrap for.

And you might think, like, what case is that?

Well, when it's emotionally charged, when it's politically charged, when the weight

of the government is coming at you with its full force.

The Doctor Hustle trial recently might be

one of those, whereas everything was a dog fight.

And that means that you get no quarter from the enemy.

The state's not going to cut you any slack if you screw up.

They don't care

if you think they're just going to give you everything, because they should.

But you got to double check it if you

think you can just gloss over some details, what you can't now, you might

ask, is there any case where you could do that?

And the answer is probably not, and we don't.

But let's just say it this way, like anything.

Like if a mechanic is working on an

engine, he knows if he's done it for long enough, how to do it efficiently.

And I know when I'm working on a case how to do it efficiently.

I know where to look for the buried treasures.

I know where to look for the snakes in the grass.

And I can do that rather efficiently.

Certain cases, though, I dissect every single inch, every

millisecond of it, because you just know that you can trust nothing.

And this is one of those cases I'm working on, and the lawyer didn't know that.

And even if he did, he didn't do it.

And there's all sorts of stuff that we missed.

So you can have really experienced good lawyers.

And I had another one come in and appeal just the other day.

The trial was lost, and the lawyer told the client afterwards.

That's the first time I've ever lost.

And my initial thought was, well, that's like how many boxers can claim an

undefeated career or how many UFC fires can claim an undefeated career.

If you haven't lost a trial doing what I

do, well, then you're not likely trying very many cases, because it's just the

nature of the beast, and it doesn't mean you're a bad lawyer.

If you've lost trials, in fact, it might

mean you're a good one, or at least an experienced one.

But you have to understand that the attorney

you're talking to must know what they're doing.

They must have experience, they must know what they're doing, or at least they

should be able to give you a reasonable plan setting forth how they intend to go

about the defense, what experts are going to hire, what experts they would recommend

to hire rather do you need an investigation?

When you hear answers like, now we're just going to use their experts.

I don't need an expert.

I'll just use theirs or hear an explanation like that.

Glosses over your question, maybe I'm trying to think of a good example, but

I've heard them all too often where lawyers are blowing off the question

and saying, we don't need to worry about that or let me do my job.

And there's a notion, too, where attorneys

tend I think everybody, we all humans tend to do this.

When you're called on something that you're not doing that you know in your

heart of hearts that you probably should be doing, a lot of times there's a

reaction of sort of like angst or anger or there's aggression coming back over the

top, like, how dare you question what I'm doing?

I'm the professional.

I'm here to tell you we all have that initial reaction at times.

But when you're talking to an attorney who

knows what he's doing, the old war horse is going to say, you know what?

That's a good idea.

Let's kick that around for a minute and we'll talk about it.

Now, I can't say idea with every idea

because not all ideas are good ideas and some are stupid on their face.

But I never tell a client they're stupid for asking a dumb question.

It's just not the fact.

I believe in having discussions with clients about their cases, and I try to

share what my thinking is on all these decisions.

So it doesn't feel like there's some

magical, mystical thing going on in the background that clients have to take a

leap of faith beyond that which they should have to take.

And what I mean by that is there's always a leap of faith.

And I tell clients all the time, look,

you're going to have to trust me at some point.

I've done this a long time, and I'm trying to instill as much trust as I can.

But you have to worry about your issues, and that's impossible to do when you're

worrying about what you're hiring me to do.

It's like you shouldn't have that burden.

You shouldn't have to have that on your shoulders.

And if you've got an attorney that you

feel like you have that on your shoulders, you may have the wrong lawyer.

You may have somebody who's not doing what they need to do.

Now back to the question, how much is too much or how much I pay?

Do I get what I pay for?

Well, yes, in that sense you do, because

if you expect your attorney to do all these things, it takes time and money.

If I am spending 30 hours a week defending

a case, that means I am not spending 30 hours a week defending other cases.

That means that I am not out there

hustling to make my living working for somebody else.

And that's fine.

I don't mind doing that, but I'm very candid about this now.

I dedicate myself to cases, and I have to

be paid for that because it means I'm not dedicating myself to other cases.

And so many lawyers just take on

everything and it gets spread really thin and corners get cut.

I'm not saying the good mechanic doesn't know how to do things efficiently.

I'm talking about when it goes too far that way.

I guess maybe to sum it up, there's a balance.

I think you do get what you pay for when you hire a lawyer.

And I told somebody yesterday, I hate to say this, and I resisted this

for a long time, but those who can pay for good legal

representation often get an advantage over those that can't.

And it's just not I'm not going to say it's fair.

It's not. But that's fact, that's just how it is.

And what I mean is if I have a case

privately and I need a forensic cell phone expert.

I am looking at my clients saying I need a forensic cell phone expert, and that's

going to cost $3500 to $5,000 independent of anything you're paying me.

I need a DNA expert that's going to cost

$2500 to $5,000 independent of what you're paying me.

I need a child psychologist to help us dissect the issues in the case.

And that's going to cost $3500 to $5,000 on top of what you're paying me.

I need a medical expert, and you guessed

it, 5000, $3500 to $5,000 on top of what you're paying me.

So, like, stack that up, man.

You've got almost 20 grand, 1520 grand in just expert fees and the case I'm talking

about, or I didn't make this up out of whole cloth.

I'm working on a case where all those

experts were needed and none were called in the defense.

Now, I'm working on it after the conviction, trying to fix it, and they

paid the attorney significantly less than that amount.

And you can sort of think, well, how does that work?

Well, it doesn't work really well because

the attorney didn't even know to tell them they needed those things.

But even if they did, they couldn't afford it.

Or maybe they could actually, in this

case, they could have and inexplicably the lawyer didn't do it.

But the point is that money helps, but it can't just be thrown at the problem.

There has to be a calculated plan with the money.

I don't care how much money my client has.

I've had unlimited budget cases.

They're rare, but I've had them.

And I still don't just go spend money, Willynilly.

We make a plan,

we sketch out the blueprints to build the house, and we build the damn house.

And if that means we need a plumber, we get a plumber.

If it means we need electrician, we get an electrician foundation guy.

We got that to engineer to help us with the beams, whatever it would be.

The analogy is the same.

That's what we get when we defend the case.

But maybe you don't need ten plumbers.

At some point, it becomes redundant and the extra money doesn't help.

So I don't even know where I'm going.

I'm rambling, but this is lawyer talk.

I ramble here sometimes, but the question is, does it matter?

Do you get the most expensive lawyer?

Well, it's not a bad place to start, but

it doesn't mean that you've got the right attorney.

You want to get the best lawyer you can afford within the budget, obviously, and

then vet that attorney to make sure you're comfortable with their experience level.

You're comfortable with what the plan is,

how they're going to build the house for you.

You're comfortable with the budget they're

proposing on the extras I'm here to tell you is that I would never

quote a fee that says I'll just include all the experts in my fee, because now

I'm working against or in favor of my own interest and maybe against the clients.

Like, oh, I've got X dollars and I've got to cover the experts with this.

Maybe I don't need the expert.

I can just keep that money and I don't do that.

I lay it out on a table in advance.

Like I can build your house, but I need to hire the plumber.

So that's going to cost X dollars on top of what I'm charging you.

If your attorney is not comfortable with

that conversation, you should push it and maybe have it.

And if it doesn't help, then maybe you're in the wrong office.

So I hope this helped.

Maybe it did, maybe it didn't.

Well, I did the best I could.

So do you get what you pay for?

It all depends, like everything else in the law.

But when you get us, you get what you pay for.

Sure.

And you will know what you're paying for upfront that much, I promise.

Just like I promise to take your questions here.

Lawyer talk Q a and a all you got to do is

submit them to the lawyertalkpodcast.com website.

That's lawyertalkpodcast.com. And while you're at it, you might as well subscribe.

You might as well just say, hey, look, I love what I'm getting here.

I love the content, so I'm going to subscribe.

I'm going to download each and every week

when I hear the roundtable, when I hear the blitz, when I hear the Q and a when I

hear the breakdowns, I'm going to download and consume it all.

Or you could just sign up and act like you consume it all.

It helps me either way.

And if you really like what you're hearing, pull out that credit card.

What's, $2?

What's a buck a month for you to keep the content flowing your way.

Become a Patreon and you can do that right there at the Lord talk podcast website.

Also, we appreciate any contribution you might make.

Either way, I'm not going to lie I'm probably going to keep coming down here

every week and creating content Because I just like to do so.

With that said, I'm going to wrap it up.

This lawyer talk Q a QA off the record on the air, at least until now.