How do I find a good lawyer?

Today, the online version of the renowned Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), founded in 1780, has published my thoughts on the question of how to find a good (Swiss) lawyer. For those who do not read German, below is my (loose) English translation of such contribution.

Most lawyers will have experienced on occasion in their careers how difficult it can be to find a good lawyer, for example when they have been looking for a colleague abroad or outside their own area of expertise. Lawyers can therefore understand how difficult it usually is for laypersons to find a suitable legal advisor. What recommendations can laypeople therefore be given to help them to proceed successfully in this regard?

It is probably a truism that today no lawyer is able to be proficient in every area and thus a good lawyer for every conceivable case. Horizontal (more and more areas of life have been and are being legally regulated) and vertical (the density of norms has increased and continues to increase) legislative activity has simply been too expansive in recent decades, which has led to a correspondingly strong growth in activity in the judiciary and the administration. As a result of this development, it is already challenging for lawyers today to be at the cutting edge of law-making and jurisprudence in two or three specialist areas. Against this background, it is in any case crucial from the point of view of those looking for a lawyer that they make their choice from among lawyers who specialise in the relevant area (taxes, divorce, criminal investigations, etc.). 

In most cases, laypersons will probably base their search for a lawyer on personal acquaintances or on recommendations from their social environment. However, relying solely on corresponding, basically accidental acquaintances or references is risky and not always effective. Instead of relying solely on a recommendation, in the classic manner provided by a golf, tennis or other friend, the person seeking legal advice should obtain a more precise picture of the recommended lawyer. Thanks to the Internet, social media and various databases, it is today possible to obtain a variety of relevant information about a lawyer, e.g.: How did a lawyer complete his or her studies, with or without honours? What additional qualifications does the lawyer have, such as additional studies abroad, a doctorate and/or a specialist lawyer's title? How long has the lawyer been working in practice, and where has he or she worked, i.e. with which employers, if he or she was employed and not self-employed? Has the lawyer published in specialist law journals, especially on the relevant topic? 

If a person seeking legal advice does not have a relevant acquaintance or recommendation as a starting point, the first step should be to find out in which legal area his or her need for advice is located. Is it a matter of building law or a problem with tax authorities, or is there a need for action in connection with criminal proceedings? As a rule, even laypersons should be able to determine the relevant area of law at least roughly, if necessary with the help of the Internet. In a second step, as mentioned above, there are now various databases for the Swiss legal market, such as the database of the Swiss Bar Association, in which it is possible to search for lawyers, depending on criteria such as the place of business and specialisation. 

For laypersons, the question of whether the size of a law firm is a decisive factor in the context discussed herein is also likely to be of interest. This question can be answered with a typical lawyer's answer: it depends, that is, on the circumstances. There are matters such as large transactions that have to be completed under time pressure or, to give another example, complex internal investigations in large companies that can only be handled by larger teams of lawyers. It is not possible for smaller firms to maintain the capacities necessary for such assignments and make them available immediately. Outside of such capacity-related constraints, the size of a law firm is not a decisive factor, but rather the personal skills of the lawyer and other relevant aspects, such as the level of fees, are of decisive importance.

In any case, it is advisable for every potential client to get to know a lawyer personally before the mandate is granted to him or her, in the sense of a "smell test". Persons who have a mandate to award should not be afraid to make the possible engagement of a lawyer dependent on such a personal meeting. Such a meeting is not unusual nowadays, but on the contrary is increasingly expected. If an attorney refuses such a procedure or already demands compensation for a first personal meeting, this obviously says a lot. If a meeting takes place, the location and design of the office, the appearance of the lawyer, etc., provide the person seeking legal advice with further valuable information in addition to his or her research (see above), which should result in a gut feeling. If this is bad, the law-seeker is recommended to continue the search for the right lawyer. As is well known, there are numerous legal service providers in practically every specialty area, especially in larger cities, so that the search for the right lawyer, i.e. the best qualified provider for the task in question, should be crowned with success sooner or later. 

?Finally, in the sense of a ceterum censeo, I would like to stress that the size of a law firm is, save for rather rare exceptions, not an issue when it comes to being represented by counsel in commercial litigations before Swiss courts. I have explained the legal and technological reasons for this in two LinkedIn-contributions dated 15 January 2018 and 26 January 2018, respectively, and in a further LinkedIn-contribution dated 8 March 2020, I covered a specific issue in this regard (What happens if I should get under a tram?).

Philipp H. Haberbeck, Zurich, 6 April 2020 (Your Swiss Commercial Litigator)

The information contained in this post is for general informational purposes only and is not intended to constitute legal advice. Readers of this post should not take any actions or decisions without seeking specific legal advice. Any mandate is subject to the full execution of an engagement letter.