# How do you "have" a lawyer? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 6, 2013, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499 "2013-08-06T15:44:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/41 "2013-08-09T01:41:20Z")
> [@ENugent](#): > > MichaelEMouse, in case you had not noticed, Spoons practices in Canada, which has somewhat different ethics rules from the US. **MichaelEMouse** is also Canadian - can’t remember if he’s called yet, or still at law school. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/42 "2013-08-09T01:53:45Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > **MichaelEMouse** is also Canadian - can’t remember if he’s called yet, or still at law school. Yup, called. ---
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/43 "2013-08-09T01:56:55Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > **MichaelEMouse** is also Canadian - can’t remember if he’s called yet, or still at law school. > [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Yup, called. :o Well, that’s slightly embarrassing. 🙂 I think I’m still correct, though. Which does not mean that it is not \*\*Spoons’ \*\*privilege to turn down any client that he doesn’t want to defend. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/44 "2013-08-09T02:06:07Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > My procedure for choosing a lawyer? Talk to lawyers and find out who they don’t want to be sitting across the aisle from. I am a lawyer, and that’s not how I would choose a lawyer if I needed one. The lawyers I wouldn’t want opposite me are the jerks, who aren’t all that good. In my book, the lawyers I like to have opposite are the good, non-jerk ones, the one who know what they’re doing and don’t have to play silly bugger games. That’s who I’d go to, not someone who was a jerk and a PITA opposite me on a file. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/45 "2013-08-09T02:07:43Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Yup, called. Congrats! I missed that! ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/46 "2013-08-09T02:09:22Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > No she would not. “Attorney of Record” is a term of art with a particular meaning–ie, that the attorney has formally entered an appearance on your behalf in a particular matter. If I do your divorce, and then later you get arrested for a crime, I am not your attorney of record in the criminal case…unless and until you hire me. > > Otherwise–I become “your” lawyer when you pay me, or for a pro bono or contingency fee case, at the point where I agree to represent you. Not before. Confidentiality attaches at the point where you confide privileged information to me, being aware that I am, in fact, a lawyer, whether or not I end up becoming “your” lawyer. However, if you tell me that you intend to cause someone serious bodily harm in the near future, I have the option to disclose that information to the extent necessary to prevent that harm. Color me further educated then. I had been under the impression that stating that Howe of Dewey, Cheatham, & Howe represents me would have me covered until I had a conference with Mr Howe to discuss terms and options. And whether he was best capable of representing me. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/47 "2013-08-09T02:46:53Z")
> [@ENugent](#): > > Which does not mean that it is not \*\*Spoons’ \*\*privilege to turn down any client that he doesn’t want to defend. And I’ve done that a few times. I’m happy to refer such clients on to other practitioners, whom I know can do a good job. ---
**Author:** ![Gleena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b3f665/32.png) [@Gleena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gleena)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/48 "2013-08-09T02:56:24Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I am a lawyer, and that’s not how I would choose a lawyer if I needed one. > > The lawyers I wouldn’t want opposite me are the jerks, who aren’t all that good. In my book, the lawyers I like to have opposite are the good, non-jerk ones, the one who know what they’re doing and don’t have to play silly bugger games. That’s who I’d go to, not someone who was a jerk and a PITA opposite me on a file. Of the litigators I work with, they recommend on a “Have a beer” basis. If they have been counsel opposite and would still have a beer with the lawyer they have been opposing after it’s all said and done no matter the outcome, they will recommend that one. Having just been through a protracted matter (and just assisting Real Lawyers ™ as I’m going to be at school until I’m dead, I think) with counsel opposite being stupidly argumentative over nothing and thick as two short planks\*, I agree with that. \*I mean seriously, if I read something and go, hey, that’s wrong and I’m correct that it’s wrong and I’m just a student, well…and I don’t mean the old ‘try it on and see what they say’ sort of stretching where you just throw “misleading and deceptive conduct” on the end of whatever else you’re arguing. I mean, ‘that is actually, factually wrong and not what the law says at all, anywhere in Australia’. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/49 "2013-08-09T03:39:59Z")
> [@Pixel\_Dent](#): > > I was disagreeing specifically with the statement that few people have the “resources” to have a lawyer on retainer. I suspect most people could come up with a couple hundred a year if they felt they has a good reason to “have a lawyer” in the on-retainer sense. > > I agree that few people have the “need” to have a lawyer on retainer. I didn’t intend to argue that. Ah, okay; I see what you’re saying when you put it that way. What I was trying to say is that most people don’t have the generalized need for predictable and regular legal work the way your business does - most regular people only need lawyers for specialized short term goals. Since the OP was specifically asking about criminal matters, I was opining that few people need a criminal lawyer on retainer or could afford to pay what it would take to get a criminal lawyer to agree to enter an appearance on any criminal matter that happens to comes up. A criminal lawyer wouldn’t represent somebody on a felony for a $300 a year retainer, since they usually charge five or six figures for that kind of trouble. They might agree to do it for, say, $1000 a month, but few people can afford to pay that sort of money and nearly nobody needs to. It would be more economical to just pay your criminal lawyer when you need them. People can do something similar to having a lawyer on retainer with legal insurance through an employer, but that’s a bit of a different situation. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/50 "2013-08-09T03:52:27Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > A criminal lawyer wouldn’t represent somebody on a felony for a $300 a year retainer, since they usually charge five or six figures for that kind of trouble. Really depends on the felony. I’ve never even quoted a 5 figure fee, much less collected one. Then again, I have not first chaired a murder or high profile case that would merit such a fee. ---
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/51 "2013-08-09T04:16:42Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > And I’ve done that a few times. I’m happy to refer such clients on to other practitioners, whom I know can do a good job. As have I. I’ve also told clients I didn’t want to represent that I would be happy to refer them to someone else, but that in my opinion, they would end up in the same place by just going to the backyard and setting a pile of cash on fire. On one particularly memorable occasion, when a potential client came to ask me about patenting her invention, I dug under my desk for a minute and asked, “you mean one of these?” and handed her a commercially-available product that did what she wanted to do. (It was a clear elastic for keeping high-heeled shoes from slipping off your feet.) She was lucky that she came to me - I probably saved her quite a bit of money with that stunt, in addition to my personal satisfaction in being able to do it. But I do not practice criminal law, so my clients always have a choice to not engage a lawyer at all. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/52 "2013-08-09T04:20:16Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Really depends on the felony. I’ve never even quoted a 5 figure fee, much less collected one. Then again, I have not first chaired a murder or high profile case that would merit such a fee. Whoops - I misspoke, I meant to say four or five figures, not five or six (although I’m sure somebody out there is collecting $100 grand somewhere). I never charged a five figure fee either when I was in private practice, but I know guys who have. The cases I had that were serious enough to even think about mentioning that kind of scratch were court appointments. ---
**Author:** ![Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58956e/32.png) [@Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emtar_KronJonDerSohn)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/53 "2013-08-09T04:44:40Z")
IME, I know if I’m doing something sticky that is going to want to bite me in the ass at a later date. The time to seek counsel is prior to committing the particular act, not when you’re getting bit. With that in mind, I like to consult with an attorney before undertaking certain ventures. At that point I would consider them to be “my lawyer” if things go south. As long as I’ve been completely honest with them and followed their advice to limit my exposure, there’s generally an easy fix and they won’t even bill me to write a letter or make a phone call on my behalf. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/54 "2013-08-09T05:40:45Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I am a lawyer, and that’s not how I would choose a lawyer if I needed one. > > The lawyers I wouldn’t want opposite me are the jerks, who aren’t all that good. In my book, the lawyers I like to have opposite are the good, non-jerk ones, the one who know what they’re doing and don’t have to play silly bugger games. That’s who I’d go to, not someone who was a jerk and a PITA opposite me on a file. Sorry for not making myself clearer. My point was that they wouldn’t want to be sitting across from them because all their paperwork is going to be in order, they’re going to ask all the questions you don’t want asked, and they’re going to know the answers to those questions before they ask them. Kind of like I don’t want to be sitting across the table from a grandmaster chess player if I have something of value at stake. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/55 "2013-08-09T07:19:15Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > Sorry for not making myself clearer. My point was that they wouldn’t want to be sitting across from them because all their paperwork is going to be in order, they’re going to ask all the questions you don’t want asked, and they’re going to know the answers to those questions before they ask them. Sorry man…you just don’t seem to get the way things really work. If I could pick my opponent, that’s the guy I’m going to pick. The reason I’d choose to face him is that it is infinitely easier to deal with someone like that. They’ve got their shit together, I’ve got my shit together. We both know the law. We both know what the judge is probably going to do if we try it. Unless his client or mine is batshit insane, we’re probably going to be able to negotiate a reasonable settlement. The guy I don’t want to face is the obnoxious blowhard, who hasn’t done his homework and thinks his position is stronger than it is or tells his client his case is stronger than it is, or is otherwise unreasonable. That guy is a pain in the ass to deal with, and makes the whole process more unpleasant and expensive than it has to be. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/56 "2013-08-09T12:25:02Z")
What **Oakminster** said. The kind I lawyer I appreciate having opposite me are the good ones. The ones I don’t like having opposite me are the jerks who make the system painful and in my opinion, tend not to do a very good job for their clients. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499/57 "2013-08-09T17:43:58Z")
I see your point. I suppose a better way to accomplish my intent would be to find out who other lawyers want sitting at the table with them… 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-have-a-lawyer/665499.md?page=2)