Every aspect of life with another person involved is a relationship of one sort or the other. This is true with every attorney you work with. In choosing an attorney, there are three key considerations you should ask yourself. Not all attorneys may be a good legal “fit” to your personality or case.
Legal issues typically involve some type of threatened or actual problem or concern. Human nature makes all of us want agreement.
However, a hallmark of a good attorney-client relationship is the trust that comes with accepting someone’s advice who disagrees with you. An attorney or other person you have a good relationship with should be willing to tell you something you don’t agree with and still be able to move forward. If not, you may not be making the best choice in your selection as all solid relationships involved being able to weather disagreement.
The second finding an attorney who understands your legal objective.1 Sometimes in the emotion and complexity of a legal matter, it is unclear to you and/or the attorney what your legal objective is and what you want to try to accomplish. If not, this will leave you frustrated and your attorney unable to work toward your objective.
Finally, a number of legal problems involve filing a lawsuit or defending against one. For this reason, it is sometimes important to your attorney-client relationship to understand who will be trying the case if it goes to trial. There are a number of different ways lawyers operate, depending on skills and organization of their practice.
In some cases, when a case nears trial it is handed off to a litigator. In others, the case is handled by the same attorney(s) from start to finish. This is not good or bad. Wrong or right. Instead, win or lose, it is important to be able to move on in life and know your case was handled with your expectations and objectives.
This blog post is written by attorneys at Ciyou & Dixon, P.C. and is for general educational purposes only. It is not legal advice, or solicitation for legal services. Ciyou & Dixon, P.C. attorneys handle civil and criminal appeals from all Indiana state trial courts, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, or United States Supreme Court.
