If you’re shopping for a lawyer, it’s chancy to rely on advertisements from the yellow pages, billboards, or TV. Many good attorneys don’t advertise at all, but just get clients by relying on word of mouth. So try getting referrals from:

Referrals from county bar associations aren’t necessarily of much value. Many bar associations simply charge attorneys a fee for putting them on the association’s referral list, and don’t sort the members according to quality. So when you call the bar association, they may just be referring you to whichever attorney is next on the list as they rotate through all the names.

When an attorney says that she’s a “state certified specialist” in criminal law, that’s significant, because it means she’s met extra requirements established by her state’s bar association. Certification as a specialist usually involves passing an exam, taking additional continuing education classes, having practiced that area of law for least five years, and having done a substantial number of serious trials. States that certify lawyers as criminal law specialists include:

            Arizona             New Jersey

            California          New Mexico

            Florida              North Carolina

            Idaho

The National Board of Trial Advocacy also certifies specialists in criminal law. Their website, from which you can obtain referrals, is: http://www.nbtanet.org/.

Don’t be overly impressed by criminal defense attorneys who claim that they’re better because they used to be prosecutors. Connections with the prosecutor’s office don’t necessarily produce better plea bargains—that has more to do with the experience, personality and negotiating skills of the particular attorney. And if you’re going to trial, you may be better off with a former public defender, who will have had lots of practice actually defending cases, as opposed to prosecuting them.

Being a member of various professional organizations usually isn’t significant—it depends on how many sets of membership dues the attorney is willing to pay. Neither is it very important which law school the lawyer attended—what counts is accomplishments while practicing law.

Nearly all criminal defense attorneys give free consultations. It makes sense to interview several, so that you have a choice. You might want to ask how many years the lawyer’s been in practice and how much of that was spent doing criminal defense. It’s also good to know how many trials the lawyer’s done, and how many cases involving your charges.

If you’re having trouble deciding between two lawyers, try asking whether they would be willing to work together, sharing the fee. Assuming they get along, both of them may prefer such an arrangement, because they can strategize together, and then each can focus on the parts of the case he does best. Besides, attorneys like to have a partner during trial, a process that always involves a great deal of work and stress.

When you interview an attorney, make sure you’re clear on exactly how much money you’d be paying if you hired her. Criminal defense attorneys are normally paid a flat fee in advance. They don’t take cases on contingency and rarely charge by the hour. Often, a criminal defense lawyer will charge half the fee if the case settles (through a plea bargain or dismissal), and require the second half of the fee only if the case goes to trial. Some attorneys break the fee into thirds in felony cases, when those fall naturally into three stages. Most criminal defense lawyers also expect the client to pay separately for “costs,” such as travel, investigation, experts, etc. All this should be in the fee agreement (contract)—do not sign it until you understand every single part of it.