This article, In Search of the Perfect Client, Joanne Cronrath Bamberger, Small Firm Business (3/14/05) offers up the standard, perfunctory advice on screening clients. Red flags include refusal to pay a retainer fee (a sign of future collection difficulties), number of prior attorneys and whether the client seems difficult. Not much new here.
If you follow these rules, you’ll certainly do fine as an attorney. But every once in a while (not all the time, or you might go bankrupt), you might want to consider throwing these rules aside and just going with your gut. That’s what Gerald Schwartzbach, the attorney who just won Robert Blake’s acquittal must have done. Though as described here, Schwartzbach was Blake’s fourth attorney, the two hit it off. And Schwartzbach’s risk has likely paid off because with this high profile victory, his services will be in great demand.
Related posts:
- Twelve Rules of Great Client Service
- ABA Tech Show – A Good Start, But Not Enough If We Don’t Change the Rules
- A Welcome Change: New England States Ease Up on Stringent Bar Rules
- Lawyer Successfully Challenges NC Bar’s Comity Rules
- Ethics Rules May Be Stupid, But Rules Are Rules
