Do you think I should go with this lawyer based on what he is telling me?

Question

I just got off the phone with a lawyer whom I requested to contact me after leaving some details about my case and scans of my citations I got off court connect by email.

He gave me some brief details about my case but said he needed more info and requested I get a court abstract before coming in for a paid consultation he said.

This is where it kinda threw me off guard just a little. I mean I know they have paid consultation and what he said was that he spent almost an hour printing out those scans and going over my case. Anyway he said the the 1hr consultation fee would be $265.00 usd, which I found pretty steep. He also said he's been an attorney for 27 years and he has dealt with over 8,000 similar cases to mine.

I tried to talk to him more about my case, In the beginning he was nice and spoke proper english, but towards the end I guess he thought somewhere in his head that he was wasting time with me thinking that I probably wasnt going to hire him or something. He will still ok, but he was started talking a little pidgin/slang kind of telling me that I didnt want to pay for information that I need, thinking I just wanted answers maybe so that I could try and take care of it myself.

I dealt with one other lawyer before and I guess at the time I didnt know that usually the first consultation is free and he was rude and told me what I should do as far as legal advice. Afterwards I offered to pay for his time and gave him $150. Then he started paying attention to me and tried to make some calls for me. Later I told him more about my case and he said he would take it on for $5,000 which I think was way too much and asked if he would accept half that. He said hed call me back but never did. Im glad he didnt though he seemed shady.

Are all lawyers like this? Nice to at the very beginning, then if they feel like they arent going to get paid become rude?

Do you think the lawyer I was just talking to seems ok? I mean from what he described he sounded experienced and he said he would try to drop my fines to $500 while in court.

Answer 1

Try to do some research on him. He may be hiding something.

Answer 2

You should check out at least three different lawyers to see which one you feel best about working for you.  A lot of lawyers think the only thing they have to sell is their time.  If they spend an hour with you, that's an hour they are not being paid by someone else.  So I think that's why he seemed to get impatient.  If the total amount of time he spent on the phone and then doing other work or research off the phone took an hour, there's your "free" consultation. It seems that you have taken some of this guy's time and he's given you some cost figures for lawyer fees. It's time to go to the phone book and talk with other lawyers.  Frankly it's rare that a lawyer will give a free consultation unless they are personal injury lawyers working on a contingency.  I think you're lucky to have gotten as much info from this guy as you did.  Good luck with your case.

Answer 3

If you have already talked to him and feel the need to ask, you should probably find a different attorney.  It sounds like you are not comfortable dealing with the person you talked to.