Your Lawyer: A User's Guide

The American public spends dearly each year on legal services. And those legal services are provided to handle the very most important matters clients face — the purchase of a home and other important transactions, wills, custody issues and divorce, any time a client has to go to court. Yet as important as a client’s entry onto the legal terrain may be, more often than not it is a trip through unfamiliar territory without a map or a compass. While in an ideal world each lawyer could be counted on to share this information face-to-face with each new client, the truth is that this does not always occur. Currently, there is no guide that provides clients with the information they need about what their lawyers owe them. The authors hope this book will provide both the map and the compass. The purpose is to provide you with the information you should know about the ethical obligations of your lawyer. While this book is no substitute for informed conversation between your counsel and you (itself an ethical requirement), as one famous retailer observes, “An informed consumer is our best customer.” The more clients know about these matters, the more likely clients’ encounters with lawyers and our legal system will be rewarding ones." The authors hope that you will read this book in that spirit. The book includes the following features: Cartoons designed to illustrate topics in each chapter. Boxes that outline the highlights of each chapter and provide you with questions you should ask your lawyer about a particular topic. Bolded terms in the text which are defined in a glossary at the end of the book.