

Ask HN: How do you evaluate a lawyer? - elai

How can you evaluate the skill and ability of a lawyer?  Especially in a foreign country where you don't know the language (but the lawyer knows english)? Or if you don't have friends who will be able to give your recommendations. Most lawyers don't have blogs, user reviews or other rating services that you can use to evaluate them with.  Things like immigration, business, and other such things.
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pseingatl
Look for a local firm that has an office overseas. Then, the local lawyer will
be ultimately responsible for the work done there and you have recourse in
case something goes wrong. Big law is pretty much fungible these days, there
is really very little difference between one firm and another. If you have a
contentious matter, it's a little bit different, but if you can you should try
international arbitration rather than use the legal system of either country.

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bragen
It's really tough if you aren't one (probably akin to the often-mentioned
difficulty non-technical folks have evaluating programmers).

But there are a few places to start. First, Martindale-Hubbell is a respected
reviewer of legal talent and provides ratings.

Second, if your lawyer happens to be a "SuperLawyer" you're probably in good
hands. SuperLawyers represent the top 5% of a given field as voted by their
peers.

Hope that gets you started.

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pinksoda
If it's a US or Canadian lawyer try searching for their name on
<http://www.talkburst.com/> \- anyone with a name can be reviewed now.

