Personal
Referral
One of the best ways to find an Seattle, Washington defective product
lawyer is by asking your friends, relatives or co-workers for suggestions.
This is especially useful if they have used an attorney for the
same purpose you are seeking one. Most people seeking a lawyer begin
by asking advice from a personal acquaintance or someone whose opinion
they value, such as their banker, minister, relative, or another
lawyer. Other common referral sources are employers, law school
teachers and administrators, labor unions, consumer groups, public
interest organizations, and women's associations. Ask friends, teachers,
employer, co-workers, minister, relatives, neighbors, or anyone
you trust which lawyers they have used and if they were happy with
the way their cases were handled.
Professional
Referral
Depending on the complexity of your case, you may want to find an
attorney whose practice emphasizes product liability cases. You
can check with members of professional organizations or others familiar
with the subject for suggestions. Your prospective attorney will
refer you to a specially qualified attorney if he is unable to provide
the services himself.
Martindale-Hubbell
Law Directory
You also can find some answers in the public library in the Martindale-Hubbell
Law Directory, which for more than 100 years has published as complete
a roster as possible of the members of the bar in the United States
and Canada. The directory gives brief biological sketches of many
lawyers and describes the legal areas in which law firms practice.
Advertising
From 1908 to 1977, lawyers were forbidden to advertise their services.
This prohibition came about through fear of "puffery"
and the belief that even the best executed advertising could be
unintentionally false, misleading or deceptive because of the complex
nature of legal services. A 1977 ruling of the United States Supreme
Court (Bates v. State Bar of Arizona) changed the rules to a degree.
Lawyers are now permitted to advertise certain information in newspapers,
Yellow Pages, and on radio and television. You can follow certain
steps when you contact a lawyer whose advertisement you read or
heard.
Don't take
the ad literally; ask the lawyer for references and check his or her
experience with your type of case.
Ask the
lawyer about the services advertised and what they include.
Don't hesitate
to discuss fees, what services they cover, and whether there will
be any extra charges.
Finally,
keep a copy of the ad so that you can check to see whether the lawyer
is performing as advertised.
