Saul Goodman - Don't Go to Jail! - Saul Goodman's Guide to Keeping the Cuffs Off

• Attorneys, no matter how well-equipped they are with legal knowledge, don’t like going through fee disputes.Even less than most clients do, is my guess. If a client is 150 percent certain they are willing to dispute the fee, know that it can be pretty embarrassing to an attorney to have to deal with it. The dispute makes them look bad to other attorneys. A strongly disputed fee might even segue into a malpractice claim—and believe me, lawyers unanimously don’t want their or their firms’ names anywhere near the word “malpractice.” Just like you would be horrified to have “accused sex offender” come up when you Google your name, we don’t want even a hint of ethical wrongdoing associated with our work. That is not to say a fee dispute will scare a lawyer into submission. If you default to petty intimidation, the system and one really pissed-off attorney will steamroll you. But! A carefully appraised and detailed argument is serious business to an attorney, and they’ll want to resolve it the best way possible if they have a lick of sense. Which might lead to…

• Arbitration.Look, if the fees at issue are not six-figure income killers, if the issue just isn’t that big, the state bar can sometimes assist with a good old arbitration. If a client volunteers to get involved with arbitration, the lawyer usually has little choice but to go along. Buyer beware—frequently, an arbitration is just about the fees and nothing but the fees. If a client suspects there is another brand of sketchiness afoot in their counselor’s shadowy offices—like, perhaps the attorney was bribed to throw the case—arbitration efforts won’t stray from the money lane.

Knowing the qualities worth seeking in a truly good attorney is one thing, and understanding some of the bullshit you don’t have to put up with is another. There are plenty of things that might tip you off that your potential legal apple has a wormy lawyer hidden in its core. Determining whether you’re looking at a red flag is a subjective art, sure. One man’s too-slick crook might be another’s legal life partner. Just like when you’re scrutinizing whether that check-engine light flashing on your dashboard means you should pull over instead of continuing to cruise down a snowy highway, you might have to go with your gut. And, for what it’s worth: you should probably pull over and check that light out. Your car probably isn’t just trying to say, “Hey, thinking of you, we should hang out more.”

• The office.Look for whatever shivers your timbers. For example: is it well-lit, with an impressive modern design? Is it reasonably neat? Look, law firms are constantly crushed under endless blizzards of paper, so make your expectations reasonable. An antiseptic microbe-free decontamination room won’t necessarily be the standard, but you can reasonably expect to see that a little TLC goes into the place’s upkeep. This goes for the attorney, too. They don’t need to be decked in the GQ -est suits and Rolexes, but they should take pride in dressing for success. However: attorneys come in all stripes, and there have been some real geniuses who were complete slobs, or walking fashion faux pas, or wore crazy duds as a middle finger to conformists—so keep in mind that there might be a pearl worth polishing in the center of that barnacled oyster of an office.

• Shitty attitude.This is stony ground, because when people walk into a law office, chances are good they’re feeling justifiably sensitive. Now, a thoughtful attorney is fully aware of this, and learns how to ride the fine line between being an honest advocate and an empathetic ear. Most folks are able to recognize the qualities of a dud: laziness, condescension, general smart-assery, etc. Those traits are about as subtle as an elephant competing in the Feline Olympics. On the other hand, if you’ve got someone who can crack a joke, lighten your load with laughter for even a second—that’s the self-rowing paddle that’s going to steer your leaky canoe up and out of Shit Creek while you’re lying fetal between the gunwales. Your situation is serious enough as it is without having to deal with some Legal Crypt Keeper, sitting behind their desk and chattering about all the legal doom you face.

• The ability to communicate.Both ways—responding and initiating. And I’m talking about an office working with some kind of calendar system that organizes this communication. Look, if you fire off ten e-mails and not even the attorney’s assistant’s intern’s hamster can be bothered to send back a “ ¿Qué? ” then there’s a problem in the law practice of Highfees, Dud, and Doolittle. If phones ring and ring and don’t even go to a generic after-hours answering service, you’re right to wonder, “Hey, what’s up with that?” That’s probably a failing practice, my friend. It’s a little legal Hindenburg and it’s about to catch fire.

• Unrealistic promises.What is realistic, anyway? A perfectly decent attorney isn’t always above eyeballing a particularly tasty case in which it looks like all the pins are perfectly aligned to bowl a big-ass strike and saying, “We’ve got this, relax, game over.” But most of us know better than to say that. Be suspicious of an attorney’s confidence, even their competence, the moment they say, “Piece of cake, it’s already won.” There are too many unpredictable elements in even the most milquetoast of misdemeanors to make that guarantee.

I don’t know if it’s true that for every case there is a perfect attorney. But, I like to believe there’s a little something to it. So: maybe don’t go galloping off with the first attorney you meet. That’ll go over as well as waking up with a Vegas hangover, a wedding ring, and an introduction to your new future ex-husband. Don’t settle for less; make sure your boxes are checked, but don’t be too damned quick to judge. A snap judgment to hire the lawyer with the biggest ad campaign, for instance, might deprive you of a chance to cut through all the justice system’s bullshit with the sharpest tool in the shed. On the flip side: those hardworking men and women asking for your business on late-night TV could be the hungriest and most passionate lawyers in town. There’s a big advantage in having a clever and think-outside-the-box legal mind on your side.

So: read a few pages of the book before you judge the smiling, shiny cover. White teeth and a bespoke pinstripe suit may paint an attractive picture, but that colorful sports jacket and unforgettable slogan you see every time you take the midtown bus to the liquor store may be exactly the razzmatazz you need.

Summation

It’s pretty simple, really: pay your counselors for the services they’ve rendered. We have a right to earn a living, and we’ve put in the hard work and the study to be where we are. In fact, pay all the folks who are working for you. And give your mail carrier a holiday bonus, Scrooge McDuck. It’s the least you can do after ordering that fifty-pound vat of lube for home delivery last April.

Having said that, don’t let yourself be taken advantage of, either. Nobody should feel stuck in a situation where they’re being gouged, or talked down to, or generally cheated. Hell, you hired a lawyer to get you out of a jam—it’s downright twisted for that lawyer to try to make things worse for you.

This takes some common sense on the client’s part, and a heaping scoop of intuition and attention to detail. If anything, figuring out that you’ve got a crappy attorney might just come down to a gut check. I knew a lawyer who was having a conversation with a client about a court appearance on charges the client was stealing from his church donations every Sunday. The lawyer had new cards to give out, and opened his wallet. As he did that, he made a big show of turning the wallet and the few hundred-dollar bills inside away from his client’s view.