Finding An Attorney To Do An Eviction.
Question
I am a new landlord and want to have an attorney do an eviction for me. How should I go about finding such an attorney?
Answer
I will first mention a couple of way how not to select an attorney. First, do not select an attorney based on the size of the Yellow Page ad, billboard, or newspaper advertisement.
Second, one cannot depend on any type of public referral service, even one operated by the local Bar Association. For example, Bar Association referral systems simply rotate through all members and the referral received is simply like playing Russian roulette. While all bar association members should be licensed attorneys who are in good standing, one isn’t necessarily referred to someone who is well versed in the specialty of interest. Any attorney can legally provide service on any legal matter even if they haven’t even thought of the subject since law school years earlier and have never been to court regarding the type of matter at hand. This can result in either inadequate advice or paying for their time to educate themselves.
In particular, most Web referral lists are particularly unreliable, as most such lists allow attorneys to list themselves for any service they wish to claim expertise in. There is absolutely no vetting of those who simply complete a Web form to add themselves to a list.
As for choosing any professional service – whether doctor, dentist, attorney, or accountant – the best way to pick an attorney is to get a referral from someone personally known to you and who you know has personally used an attorney for the particular type of matter for which you need one. Accordingly, I suggest you talk with other landlords who you know and/or a management company that appears to be competent (management of a large number of properties is often a good indication of competence) who use an attorney for their evictions and get a two or more names of attorneys who they use. Then, check out those attorneys regarding their time-in-practice and specialization.
Many attorneys do a lot of evictions. Some deal almost exclusively with evictions and other landlord-tenant matters. Such an attorney is likely to be much better than one whom, although a good attorney, does an eviction only occasionally. This is both because of more experience in eviction law and because such an attorney more likely has had experience with the different judges who handle evictions within a particular court jurisdiction, meaning the attorney knows better how to try a case before a particular judge, maybe which one to avoid, if possible, because the judge is pro-tenant.
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