Your very first question may well be, “Where do I find the best lawyer?”. The common stereotype suggests, the best lawyers are found in the Big City.
Stop, right here; this is a question that deserves more careful thought:
A. Big-city Lawyers Are Definitely More Expensive but Not Necessarily of Better Quality than Local Lawyers.
1.Downtown Mega Firms Do Charge More. Sometimes more in breathtaking amounts than the charge for the very same services performed by a local lawyer. Two reasons come to mind: first, like the fabled Emperor’s New Clothes, there is a “snob value” to being in the City and second in the City overhead costs, for things like rent and support staff salaries are just higher and these costs need to be passed along to customers.
2.High Quality Legal Services Do Reside in Your Local Community. At the outset, the practice of law does not long suffer fools and anyone completing a quality legal education and then passing a bar examination means the respective abilities of lawyers are generally separated by degrees and not orders of magnitude. Next, being a lawyer is a demanding exercise and attorneys have homes and families too; quality lawyers are going to be found in your very neighborhood, because working and living in the same or neighboring communities promotes a better work-life balance.
3.Local Lawyers May Be Able to Charge You Less. Axiomatic amongst experienced business people is “It does not matter how much money you make, all that really matters is how much money you keep.” Presuming there are both lower costs of doing business in suburbs and increased productive time because of shorter commutes to work, it follows that less stands in the way to profitability for a local lawyer. Clients should share in the economies of being closer to home.
B. Local Lawyers Know the Territory. Your case is going to be heard in your local court and local lawyers carefully cultivate relationships with local court staff and judges. Local lawyers are more likely to be known quantities in the Court and unlike an outsider Big-City Lawyer, more likely to be trusted in the local Court and already familiar with where pitfalls for the unwary might hide.
C. You Are More Likely to Receive What You Paid for from a Local Lawyer.
1.Big-City Mega Firms Are First, Marketing Enterprises. Among the many hats a Big-City Lawyer must wear is the one labeled “salesperson”. Income is the lifeblood of every business and the enormous overhead at a Big-City Mega Firm make sales and marketing an economic imperative. Conducting sales and performing legal cannot be accomplished at the same time. This means your Big-City Lawyer, the one you hired to do your work, is likely to be forced to delegate doing of your work to an underling, someone you do not know and have not yet learned to trust.
2.Local lawyers tend to work in smaller, perhaps even “one-person shops”. Your lawyer will be the one actually doing your work, simply because there is no one else. Your actual lawyer will personally take your telephone call and again because there is no one else. The fact of there being no one else in the office to do your work, or even to take your call is actually by design. It lowers overall costs and makes your lawyer more accessible to you, without the multiple layers of receptionists, secretaries and paralegals between your question and your answer.
In summary, and from the perspective of our office, do hire a local lawyer to do your work. The resulting legal work product will be every bit comparable to that produced by a Big-City Mega Firm. Finally, with local lawyers you should depend on having better access to your actual lawyer and in the process probably save a lot of money on your project.
There are also some cosmetic changes that need to be made to the language on the site. Should I send you an errata sheet or would things be better if we just spend some time face-to-face and get everything done once.
