00:04
the things that you want to look for
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when hiring a criminal defense lawyer
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is number one you want to make sure that
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the lawyer has experience specifically
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in criminal law
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particularly in criminal defense law you
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also want to make sure if you can that
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your lawyer
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is certified as a criminal law
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specialist and you can do that by
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checking
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either their website or go on the state
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bar website the california state bar
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website
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put in the name of the lawyer and you’ll
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find out if they’re certified as a
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criminal law specialist or not
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the competence and and the experience is
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one thing
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the second thing is that you want to
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make sure that the lawyer that you’re
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working with is someone that you can get
00:36
along with
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so it’s really important to meet the
00:38
lawyer and make sure that you have a
00:40
good working relationship
00:41
not every client is right for every
00:43
lawyer and not every lawyer is right for
00:44
every client so
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those are the two things that i would
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look for
00:53
charging for services is done in a
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couple different ways
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in criminal law it’s very common for
00:59
lawyers to charge by a flat fee
01:01
rate so the lawyer will assess the case
01:03
and
01:04
come up with an idea on how much time is
01:07
going to be involved in the case how
01:08
complex the case is
01:10
and then gauge an estimate of the amount
01:13
of lawyer time
01:14
required to handle the case properly and
01:17
then set a flat fee at that basis
01:19
the benefit of that of course is that
01:21
the client knows
01:22
exactly what the fee is and the lawyer
01:24
knows what the fee is so
01:25
there’s not an open meter running from
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the the
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standpoint of the client the other way
01:30
to do it is
01:31
the exact opposite is to charge by an
01:33
hourly basis and sometimes for the right
01:35
case that’s appropriate
01:37
and of course there’s benefits and
01:38
drawbacks to that usually
01:40
the clock is running when you’re billing
01:42
on an hourly basis but those are the two
01:44
ways
01:45
really to handle the issue of attorney’s
01:52
fees