Articles Posted in Law Practice & Management

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Check Your “Attorney’s” Bona Fides! (Don’t be an April Fool.)

“I thought he was a licensed attorney.”
“I thought a paralegal could advise and represent me.”
“He said he knew Oregon law.”

If you hire someone who claims to be an attorney, or who hedges when asked, trust your instincts, because when your instinct detects hedging, your instinct is often a whole lot sharper than you are at the moment. It doesn’t mean it is right, just that it isn’t bothered with “being nice” or any other need to please. Be the adult and stay in charge of the situation.

“Are you a licensed attorney in this state” is a yes or no question.

The answer should not be “uh, huh, or uhhhhhhh,” or, “ummm, uh uh, how are you today?” or “sort of,” or any variation on that theme.

The answer should either be “NO” or “YES” and “here is my bar card so you can check with the Oregon State Bar.” And then CHECK with the Oregon State Bar! Call them or check their website, for heaven’s sake.

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You never know what you might learn when you search the blogs for Oregon legal news. For example, here’s a useful post:

Oregon Employers Should Take Care with Employee Payroll Deductions

There are more, and not just local bloggers (or blawgers if you prefer) commenting on Oregon law. Here is a quick way to search the blawgers who have signed up with this search tool:

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Update: See this 4/30/09 OLR Blog post for new links to guides.

In addition to the usual source, Oregon State Bar (OSB) Information and Referral Service, don’t forget there are other sources of referrals. For example:

1) For attorneys who specialize in elder law issues.

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This recent post at f/k/a will take you to previous ones on lawyer billing, all worth reading. It will also take you to a definition of agita, a condition not unknown to those of us who don’t get a chance to get it all out of our systems (though blogging does help).

This leads me to my current lament (but no agita), which is: “why isn’t there a satisfactory legal equivalent to The Best American Science Writing?” (I’m working through the 2008 edition now.) Or is there?

There are a lot of “The Best American xxx Writing”: science and nature writing, short stories, mystery stories, comics, erotica, political writing, plays, sports writing, etc. Why not law?

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It won’t be the first time (nor the last) that I connect dots in a way that makes your eyes cross, but work with me here:

(First, here is some comic relief from Courtoons (thanks to Jim Calloway for the lead!).

Now, full speed ahead:

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First things first: If your lawyer dies, call his/her law firm. If your lawyer dies and the law firm has died too (e.g. if the lawyer was a solo practitioner) and you want to know what happened to your case files, if the law firm no longer exists, or any other similar scenario occurs … call the Oregon State Bar (OSB): 503-684-3763. They will advise you.

Second things: Lawyers do think about these things (or they should) and they even get wonderful honky-tonk titled articles out of their deliberations on the subject:

From Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips blog, you’ll go to:

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The Oregon State Bar (OSB) Information and Referral Service can refer you to an attorney who will handle your case OR they can refer you to a coach. The OSB is exploring more unbundled (aka limited scope) legal assistance options. In the meantime, you can phone them and ask for an attorney to help you with:

* Small Claims Coaching
* Pro Se Coaching
* Document Review

(I previously posted about unbundling, limited scope legal assistance, and lawyers fees here.)

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The King County Law Library blogs about More People are Acting as their Own Lawyers, linking to this story:

“More people acting as their own lawyers: Courts clog up as Americans represent themselves, even in complex cases,” updated 2:28 p.m. PT, Mon., Nov. 24, 2008

Excerpt from the article:

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Law librarians never make referrals to individual lawyers. Never. Never. Never. But, others can and do. Lawyers do and can, friends can and do. (And the best bartenders often have the best recommendations – they hear it ALL – but you still have to check the attorney’s bona fides!) The Oregon State Bar (OSB) Referral and Information Service can and does make referrals to individual attorneys.

The latest (Vol. XXV, No. 4, October 2008) issue of the newsletter from the Estate Planning and Administration section of the Oregon State Bar (OSB) has the following article:

“Liability for Referrals to Other Lawyers,” by Tim McNeil, of Davis Pagnano & McNeil, with a discussion of the tort of negligent referral, joint venture/join liability, the Oregon Rules of Professional Conduct, and how to limit liability.

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From the Washington County (Oregon) Law Librarian:

HALT has a new (free and downloadable) booklet on Understanding Attorney Fees: So You Can Keep Legal Costs Down. You can also link to it from the HALT homepage and from their Legal Information Clearinghouse webpage.

Read about HALT here. They have many useful legal self-help publications free or for low-cost.

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