Helpful Details You Should Know Before Your First Consultation With A Defence Lawyer

You’ve been charged with a criminal offence, and you want to hire a lawyer. And you start interviewing some lawyers, so you get some consultations. How do you prepare for this? What do you need to know going in, what you need to ask? How is that going to go? Well, first and foremost, I’m going to give you some tips in this situation, because you need to hire the right lawyer, and that’s an interview process. It has to be right fit that you think this is the lawyer for you. So first of all, before you go to that meeting, you have to have a clear insight. Know what you’re charged with, bring all of your paperwork that the police gave you upon release. That’s the most important thing. The lawyer is going to know what to do. They’re going to know the questions to ask you, and they’re going to go over the court procedure with you. You need to know when your first court appearance is, because that’s one of the most important things. Obviously, the lawyer is going to ask you, and I would really prepare, if I were you like think about a basic timeline of the events. You know what the allegations are. Let’s say it’s a sexual assault, or let’s say an assault. Well, you want to kind of write out in your own mind some basic bullet points to talk discuss with the lawyer, and because they’re going to ask, they might ask you what happened, for example, everywhere takes a different situation. Some are going to want to know all the facts. Some are just going to want to an ***(inaudible) outline. But typically, at these initial meetings, it’s just a basic timeline, so they have a basic understanding of the facts and be honest with the lawyer in that situation. I mean, sometimes some lawyer might say, look, I don’t want to know the facts yet. Just give me an outline how you know this person, etc. Every lawyer approaches these things differently, but be ready for a basic outline and be ready to talk about your personal history, because the lawyer is going to want to know all about your personal history, what you do for living, age, married, prior criminal record, because that’s so important in defending any criminal charge. So you want to know that. And you want to prepare questions. I would you know, first of all, any good criminal lawyer, they’re going to anticipate your questions, they’re going to go over the court procedure, expectations, how, what strategies they’re going to use to defend this type of charge, or they’re going to make try and make you comfortable with their experience, if, assuming they’re an experienced criminal lawyer. But you should prepare those questions anyway. I think you’ll find that most good criminal lawyers will cover all them, but there might be a few further questions that you have about how they intend to strategize, how they intend to prepare your case, and all about the court system, but when you leave that meeting, you should have a really good understanding of all the expectations, what the lawyer is expected to do, what you’re expected to do, how the court system works, how long approximately is going to take to get through the system, and the steps this lawyer needs to do to successfully defend you. Now, whether that’s resolving a matter or whether it’s proceeding at the trial, you should really have a good understanding of what that lawyer is all about, whether they’re a good lawyer, whether they know the system and whether they’re able to articulate things to you. Make sure you understand that, and do follow up questions as well, if you don’t understand something. So ultimately, as well, you want to think about your budget. You want to think about legal fees. Ask the lawyer about legal fees. Get things in writing, that’s important. If they give you a quote, some lawyers will do hourly legal fees. Some will give you block quotes, for example, for resolution or versus going to trial. Preferably, I prefer block quotes, because there’s certainty. Hourly fees lead to crazy uncertainty. I know some criminal lawyers do that. A lot of criminal lawyers will do block quotes. I find it’s much more reasonable, and a person knows what they’re facing. So at the end of that meeting, if you properly prepare with all your mindset, gather all your ducks in a row, your version, events, your background, what questions you want to ask, if that lawyers answered all of those you know, you can look at the reviews, see if they’re good fit for you, and ultimately, if you can afford their legal fees and make a decision about whether to hire them, it’s an interview process. You’re going to that lawyer to decide whether you want to hire them, and you’re also getting some good free legal advice, because most lawyers will give an initial free consultation, at least. You’re getting some good legal advice, so you least have a little bit of a roadmap for your case. Now this is not the meeting to sit there and defend yourself. It’s just the basic outline, gathering some information and ultimately making your decision about whether you want to hire that particular lawyer. Thank you for watching our video.