I’ve had experience of using legal services such as lawyers as indeed many homeowners or business people would. Of course generally lawyers drop their services into one of many specialisms – house purchase (or conveyancing), family (wills, divorce etc) and many others, but from my experience, finding a good one… now that’s the challenge! Another is getting services at an agreeable price and perhaps therein lays a thought.
Choosing a good lawyer is fraught with challenges like any other business decision and chemistry is important, but so is cost. On our UK Lawyers Directory we have a variety of legal specialists who will be able to help you but I’d like to share a few tips with you below.
The last time I used a lawyer my husband and I were selling a company and given previous experiences we decided to interview 3 specialists and the results were interesting to say the least.
Of course the message here is to go meet a few lawyers and speak to them about their experience in your particular subject or challenge before you appoint one. In our case we were looking for someone highly experienced and professional, but also at a predictable cost – something I feel is more and more common in today’s world.
The practices we saw varied a deal and I have to say much more than we had expected. All were well known, long established with specialist commercial departments, but as to cost, the two long established, perhaps more traditional practices would only elude to cost, sticking pretty rigidly to their hourly billing rate.
The senior partner of one practice though, immediately and of his own fruition offered a variable capped billing process or to our delight “a fixed price”. Though the hourly rate was higher, the fixed price was exactly what we were looking for and they proved very professional too.
Here are 5 tips that we’ve gained from our experiences:
- As always, word of mouth is important as a first step to choosing
- Remember that you’re the buyer and they are providing the service. Do not be intimidated
- Go interview a few. A personality fit as well as price comparison is important
- Ask for references and ensure they are a specialist in the particular area of law that you require
- Do not be afraid to talk about costs. They are just as susceptible to the economy as us ordinary folk and may be willing to negotiate. More lawyers are now providing variable capped billing or a fixed price for certain issues.
