Hiring a criminal defense attorney is a daunting process. All too often someone retains an attorney only to be entirely dissatisfied with him or her after their retainer is paid. The complaints are many: the attorney won’t go to see my loved one; the attorney isn’t filing motions; the attorney won’t return my telephone calls; ad infinitum. While there is always a chance that retained counsel will perform unsatisfactorily, following are some suggestions as to how one can minimize the chances of hiring an attorney that is incompetent or otherwise ill-suited for the case he or she is hired to defend.

1) ALWAYS research a prospective attorney’s educational background, areas of practice, win/loss record, and reputation before placing the first call to him or her. An overview of their legal education can be found either on the state bar association website. Deduce whether they obtained their law degree from an Ivy League college, a mediocre or poorly rated law school, or whether they were admitted to practice under the state’s alternative admissions program (usually requiring only one year of law school while working for a licensed attorney). An attorney’s law school GPA should also be taken into account; certainly you don’t want to retain an attorney who barely made the grade. His or her specialized areas of practice (criminal law, matrimonial law, etc.) can be found through Martindale-Hubbell (Law Resources from Martindale.com: Lawyer Locator and Attorney Directory), as can the attorney’s peer rating as assessed by their fellow practitioners and the judges before whom they have practiced. Obviously you don’t want a divorce lawyer defending your loved one against a serious felony charge, nor do you want a criminal lawyer who gets bad reviews from the local legal community. A prospective attorney’s win/loss record can also be accessed through legal research databases such as Westlaw, Lexis, Loislaw, Fastcase, Verdictsearch and others. It may cost you a couple hundred dollars to access those databases for a few days, but it is well worth it.

2) ALWAYS insist that the attorney meet with you face-to-face for an initial consultation without fee to you. Treat your initial meeting with the attorney as a job interview with you being the employer and he or she the prospective employee; if you are paying them, they work for you. Armed with the background information you already have, question the attorney about his educational background, areas of practice and win/loss record. Surely you don’t want to hire an attorney who lies to you at the very outset. Ask the attorney if he or she has ever before handled a case similar to that you are contemplating hiring them for (but bear in mind that no two cases are identical). Ask him for the names and telephones number of prior clients he represented (he can provide that information without violating the attorney/client confidentiality privilege). If the attorney is unwilling to provide you with that information that should tell you they don’t have past clients who will speak favorably of them. If they do give you that information, contact those prior clients and ask them such things as whether or not the attorney communicated with them, whether they thought a good job was done, etc. And be not impressed by a fancy walnut desk or other lavish office furnishings, a 3-piece Armani, lots of gold, etc. The attorney likely acquired those material things by representing past clients, but the question you should keep in mind is: did he or she “earn” them or did they in essence “steal” them?

3) NEVER pay the attorney his or her full retainer is advance. Would you ever pay a contractor in full to build you a new home before he ever even obtains a building permit? Of course not, for to do so would leave you no leverage to correct defects in his workmanship with which you might not be satisfied. The same holds true when hiring an attorney; if you pay him or her in full before they begin working on your loved one’s case you leave yourself without leverage to encourage the attorney to correct whatever it is they are or are not doing that you may eventually be unhappy about. Paying an attorney a portion of his or her requested retainer in advance is reasonable, but paying him or her in full in advance leaves too much room for counsel to “take the money and run” so to speak.

4) ALWAYS insist that your written retainer agreement with an attorney specify: (a) his or her hourly wage; (b) that you be furnished with an itemized bill at the end of each month delineating the services rendered and the cost therefor; and (c) that you will be refunded in full any unused portion of the monies already paid them in the event you are not satisfied with their representation and elect to fire them.

5) ALWAYS take into consideration such things as local political affiliations, history of proverbial “sell-outs” by attorneys, community views toward certain criminal offenses, and anything else that may weigh on the type of case you are contemplating retaining counsel for. While sometimes one is better off hiring a local attorney, especially in a case where a defendant is clearly guilty of the crime(s) charged and is therefore looking for a favorable plea bargain, other times it is better to hire an out-of-town attorney who doesn’t care about garnering the ire of a judge or prosecutor for the fact he rarely, if ever, has to deal with them. Remember that a local attorney will naturally be more apprehensive about fighting a prosecutor tooth and nail before a given judge if they deal with that same prosecutor’s office and practice before the same judge regularly.

Again, regardless of how many precautions one takes, there is still a chance that an attorney will burn them in some way. But the probability of that occurring can be significantly decreased if the above suggestions are followed.