Being charged with a crime can be a very scary situation. When you are charged with a crime, the most important asset you will have is your defense attorney. Since picking the right defense attorney is so important, you will need to be able to vet the attorney to pick the right one. There are nine tips that you can follow that could help you to properly vet your defense attorney options.
Years of Experience
When you are looking to vet your potential defense attorney, the first thing that you should do is consider their years of experience. When you are looking for an attorney, you will want to find one that has relationships with local prosecutors and experience in front of a judge. Because of this, finding an attorney with a lot of law experience is important.
Experience With This Type of Case
While general law experience is important, so is the experience with your type of case. In some situations, a defense attorney can be very generalized. However, you may be better off finding someone that has more detailed experience working with your type of case. If you are able to find someone that is experienced with your type of case, they will be more likely able to build a defense strategy that will work to get the charges dropped.
References
If you are looking for a defense attorney, you should also consider getting references. If you know other people that have been charged with a crime in the past, you may want to ask them whether or not they had a good experience with their attorney. If you know people that have had success with a certain attorney, you should reach out to that attorney to see if they can represent you.
Online Reputation
It would also be a good idea to do some research of an attorney online. Similar to any other type of service provider, attorneys frequently will receive online reviews from past clients. You should be able to review these attorney reviews to get a sense of whether or not clients have been satisfied. You should focus on whether or not the attorney was successful in getting the charges dropped and whether clients felt that they had good communication with their counsel.
Counsel Opinion
Before you hire an attorney, you should make sure you get a better understanding of what their opinion is of your case. You should look for an attorney that seems to have a viewpoint that is optimistic. If you have an attorney that has a pessimistic viewpoint, you may be fighting an uphill battle against your own counsel.
Initial Defense Strategy
Before hiring an attorney, you should also get a sense as to what their defense strategy would be. A defense attorney could take a variety of different steps to try to fight your case. They may be able to first try to negotiate a plea bargain or have the charges dropped entirely. You should make sure that you are comfortable with their plan before you engage their services.
Current Workload
When you are meeting with attorneys, you should also get a sense of what their current workload is. Ideally, you should be able to find an attorney that does not have too many active cases at this moment. This will help to ensure that they have more free time to dedicate to your case.
Personality
When you hire a defense attorney you will end up spending a lot of time with the attorney. Because of this, you will want to find someone that has a personality that meshes well with your own. You should look for someone that you can trust and open up to. If you are able to do this, you will have much better communication, which is very important when building a criminal defense.
Gut and Intuition
Ultimately, when you are looking to pick a defense attorney, you need to be able to trust your gut instinct. When you are meeting with the attorney, you will likely have a better sense of whether you trust the attorney and believe that they can get the job done for you. You should do your best to listen to the facts but also your gut and overall instincts.
