I have seen quite a few emails lately about people needing an attorney in different locations.
There are a few good ways to find an attorney:
1. Personal recommendation of friends or family. This is the best wayto find an attorney. If you use this method, make sure you tell theattorney that you were referred by so-and-so, who is a family member ora friend.
2. Through your work. Some employers like Intel, the state, UCDavis,offer employee benefits for legal services. If your employer offersthis, call the hotline and get a recommendation. Those attorneys havebeen checked thoroughly by the service.
3. The internet. Not just some random search on the internet. That willnot yield good results. I tell people to check out Avvo, www.avvo.com.Avvo is an independent rating website that lists every attorney in thestate and covers about 80% of all attorneys nationwide. Avvo ratesattorneys on a scale from 1 to 10. The method is proprietary. But, inaddition to the numerical ranking, which by the way is the firstscoring system for attorneys that people can make sense of, there areendorsements from other attorneys, client reviews and more informationabout the attorney. Overall, it gives you a complete view of theattorney.
Avvo has been used by several national magazines to compile lists ofthe best attorneys in certain fields. Avvo has also been used tocompile lists of the best attorneys in geographical regions bynewspapers, magazines and websites.
You can use Avvo to search for an attorney by practice area, iepersonal injury, workers comp, employment and in a certain area, be itCalifornia, Sacramento or Elk Grove. Another way to use this is to geta recommendation of an attorney and then put their name in Avvo and seewhat Avvo has to say. This will let you verify that the recommendationyou received is a good one.
Hiring an attorney is a very personal decision. You want to make surethat you hire the right attorney for you. That may, or may not, be theright attorney for someone else. However, using these three thingsshould get you the right attorney.