Search for [Your state or city] bar association. You might find lawyers that list their willingness to take cases for free. Contact the organization or state agency that oversees lawyer licensing in your state.
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You might find lawyers that list their willingness to take cases for free. Contact the organization or state agency that oversees lawyer licensing in your state. Search for [Your state] lawyer licensing.
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Contact the organization or state agency that oversees lawyer licensing in your state. Search for [Your state] lawyer licensing. The site might indicate which lawyers or firms offer pro bono representation. Visit the local law school. Many have legal clinics where students, supervised by attorneys, take cases for free.
If you qualify for legal aid – If you can’t afford a lawyer, the legal aid office can help you for free. Legal aid lawyers are state or federally funded lawyers. They offer help for some legal situations (e.g., eviction defense, denial of employment compensation or other benefits, and consumer credit problems).
With over 50 web properties, the Nolo Network is one of the web's largest libraries of consumer-friendly legal information – all available for free.
What is a pro bono program? Pro bono programs help low-income people find volunteer lawyers who are willing to handle their cases for free. These programs usually are sponsored by state or local bar associations.
Nolo Pricing For unlimited editing and changes, it's $30-44 per year. Nolo offers a range of self-help legal resources at an affordable cost. The reasons most people visit Nolo—to find a local lawyer or access the informational articles—are free.
Nonprofit Fundraising Registration, Nolo's 50-State Digital Guide is a new first-of-its-kind digital product offered by Nolo. The Digital Guide comes as an annual subscription that includes semi-annual updates in January and July of each year.
Pro bono work is legal advice or representation provided free of charge by legal professionals in the public interest. This can be to individuals, charities or community groups who cannot afford to pay for legal help and cannot get legal aid or any other means of funding.
Pro bono – more formally, pro bono publico, literally meaning “for the public good” – is a term for professional services, usually legal services, undertaken voluntarily without any expectation of payment.
Overview. A retainer fee can be any denomination that the attorney requests. It may be as low as $500 or as high as $5,000 or more. Some attorneys base retainer fees on their hourly rate multiplied by the number of hours that they anticipate your case will take.
Attorney vs Lawyer: Comparing Definitions Lawyers are people who have gone to law school and often may have taken and passed the bar exam. Attorney has French origins, and stems from a word meaning to act on the behalf of others. The term attorney is an abbreviated form of the formal title 'attorney at law'.
Found almost exclusively in the legal term nolo contendere, nolo means "I do not want" or "I do not wish" or "or I choose not" in Latin.
Overall, LegalZoom is well-rated across online review sites. LegalZoom has an average of more than four stars on Trustpilot, ConsumerAffairs, and the Better Business Bureau. LegalZoom is a BBB-accredited business with an A+ rating—however, they do have more than 500 complaints closed in the last three years.
Going through Mama Bear Legal Forms to create your will is every bit as legitimate. You'll get the same documents an attorney would create for you, it just ends up being a fraction of the cost.
What is Wex? WEX is a collaboratively-edited legal dictionary and encyclopedia. It is intended for a broad audience of people, ranging from lawyers to law students to people who have no experience with the law! No doubt purists will be quick to point out the differences between a dictionary and an encyclopedia.
Nolo offers a unique lawyer directory that provides a comprehensive profile for each attorney with information that will help you select the right attorney. The profiles tell you about the lawyer's experience, education, and fees, and perhaps most importantly, the lawyer's general philosophy of practicing law.
Here are a few other sources you can turn to for possible candidates in your search for a lawyer: 1 The director of your state or local chamber of commerce may be a good source of business lawyers. 2 The director of a nonprofit group interested in the subject matter that underlies your lawsuit is sure to know lawyers who work in that area. For example, if your dispute involves trying to stop a major new subdivision, it would make sense to consult an environmental group committed to fighting urban sprawl. 3 A law librarian can help identify authors in your state who have written books or articles on a particular subject -- for example, construction law. 4 A women's or men's support group will probably have a list of well-regarded family and divorce lawyers.
Many sites, including Nolo.com, offer a way to connect with local lawyers based on your location and the type of legal case you have. You answer a few questions about your case and your contact information, then the right type of lawyers contact you directly. Talk to a local lawyer.
A better approach is to talk to people in your community who have experienced the same problem you face -- for example, if you have a claim of sexual harassment, talk to a women's group. Ask them who their lawyers were and what they think of them. If you talk to half a dozen people who have had a similar legal problem, chances are you'll come away with several good leads.
Lawyers, of course, are prime sources of this information, but if you bought all the needed information at their rates -- $150 to $450 an hour -- you'd quickly empty your bank account.
Fortunately, many lawyers will work with you to help you acquire a good working knowledge of the legal principles and procedures you need to deal with your problem at least partly on your own. If you are hoping to represent yourself and use a lawyer only for advice, make sure the lawyer is open to that type of set-up.
Unfortunately, the complaint logs of all lawyer regulator y groups indicate that many lawyers are terrible communicators. If every time you have a problem there's a delay of several days before you can talk to your lawyer on the phone or get an appointment, you'll lose precious time, not to mention sleep.
Legal aid lawyers are usually government-funded lawyers who represent people with low incomes in a variety of legal situations, including eviction defense, denial of unemployment compensation or other benefits, and consumer credit problems.
If You've Been Injured. If you have been injured and wish to sue, a lawyer may agree to represent you on a "contingency fee" basis. While the lawyer's services won't be free, you pay the lawyer's fee only when and if she recovers money for you.
If your dispute involves a social justice issue and has wide implications beyond your individual situation, an attorney or public interest legal organization with an interest in that issue may represent you on a "pro bono" ( no fee or reduced fee) basis. For example, if your claim involves sexual harassment by an employer, abuse by a spouse or partner, discrimination in housing or employment, freedom of speech or religion, environmental pollution, or access to medical treatment, you may find an attorney or organization willing to represent you pro bono.
Before you meet with a lawyer, you might want to learn some common (and perhaps even not-so-common) legal terms. Get Nolo's Plain-English Law Dictionary, now available as a free iPhone app (also compatible with iPod touch).
If you've been charged with a crime, you're entering the world of the criminal justice system. In this world, an experienced attorney is critical to help manage your case and obtain the best possible outcome. Many defendants will be able to get a public defender to represent them at no cost, but others may not qualify financially ...
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Many defendants will be able to get a public defender to represent them at no cost, but others may not qualify financially or prefer to hire a private attorney. In this section we'll explain who can get free legal representation, and who must (or should) hire their own criminal defense attorney.
Your lawyer must keep your confidences, with rare exceptions.
You must be legally "competent" before a judge will allow you to represent yourself in a criminal trial.
While attorneys can give advice, clients have the ultimate right to make most of the important decisions relating to their case, with very few exceptions. More See all Working With Your Criminal Defense Lawyer Topics. See More Working With Your Criminal Defense Lawyer Articles.
Search for [Your state or city] bar association. You might find lawyers that list their willingness to take cases for free.
Contact the organization or state agency that oversees lawyer licensing in your state. Search for [Your state] lawyer licensing. The site might indicate which lawyers or firms offer pro bono representation.
Nolo is a part of the Martindale Nolo network, which has been matching clients with attorneys for 100+ years.
When a civil law firm takes a case pro bono, it does so generally for marketing reasons, wanting to burnish its reputation. But it won't want to anger its paying clients, so it chooses "safe cases." More importantly, pro bono lawyers are rarely as efficient as professional legal aid attorneys, nor are they as competent to handle cutting-edge cases as their counterparts. On the other hand, if a civil firm that's well-stocked with associates, paralegals, and support staff decides to throw its resources behind a time-intensive case, the result can be impressive.
A pro bono lawyer takes a case for free, and otherwise works for fee-paying clients.
In the 1960s the legal assistance program of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) extended federally-funded help to poor litigants, while maintaining legal reform activities. The reformist aspect of the OEO was politically unpopular, and in 1974 the office morphed into the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), a non-profit based in the District of Columbia. Though briefly well-funded during the Clinton administration, the LSC has suffered from funding and grant cuts ever since.
These cases are taken "pro bono.". When a civil law firm takes a case pro bono, it does so generally for marketing reasons, wanting to burnish its reputation.
Written by a former SSA medical consultant, Nolo's Guide to Social Security Disability is the essential book for learning about the disability process, and can be helpful whether you hire or lawyer or not.
Social Security disability lawyers get paid only if you win, and their pay, which comes out of your backpay award from Social Security, is limited to 25% of your backpay or $6,000 , whichever is less. Statisically, having a lawyer significantly increases your chances of winning benefits.
Social Security disability applicants are sometimes reluctant to hire an attorney because they think they cannot afford one.
Questions about estate taxes may be better (and less expensively) answered by an experienced accountant than a lawyer. Or if you're wondering what type of life insurance to buy, you may be better off talking to a financial planner.
Although many consumers (and some lawyers) don't know it yet, the way lawyers and their customers structure their relationships is changing fast. Lawyers used to insist on taking responsibility (and fees) for creating an entire estate plan. But, in what has become a very competitive market, many lawyers now offer piecemeal services, tailored to just what a customer wants.
Websites like AllLaw.com (and Nolo.com) don't just provide you with practical information on all aspects of a legal issue, they're also portals to getting help from a qualified attorney in your area. Use the "Chat" and "Case Evaluation" tools right on this page to tell us a little bit about your situation, and take your first step toward the best outcome for your personal injury case.
Finally, a lawyer might refuse to take your perfectly good case for the same reason that you might not want to hire a perfectly good lawyer. That is, the two of you just might not feel comfortable with each other. If your personality and the lawyer's clash right away, the lawyer may simply decide that handling your claim is just not worth it.
Nolo is a part of the Martindale Nolo network, which has been matching clients with attorneys for 100+ years.
Contact friends or coworkers who have been represented by a lawyer in their own personal injury claims. If they say good things about the experience, put that lawyer on your list of candidates. But don't make any decision about a lawyer solely on the basis of someone else's recommendation. Different people will have different responses to a lawyer's style and personality. Also, at any particular time a lawyer may have more or less energy or interest to devote to a new case. So don't make up your mind about hiring a lawyer until you've met with them, discussed your case, and decided you're comfortable entering a working relationship.
Bring copies of all the documents you have concerning your claim: police report, medical bills, income loss information, and all correspondence with the insurance company, including your demand letter if you have reached that stage. Most personal injury lawyers don't charge for an initial consultation.
This may be because you were largely responsible for the accident, because it is too difficult to prove that someone else was at fault, or because the person responsible for the accident has little or no insurance coverage.
After you have discussed with the lawyer the facts of your case and the history of your negotiations with the insurance company, the lawyer may give you a general opinion of how much your case is worth and how difficult it may be to get the insurance company to pay something in that range. This is when you should discuss with the lawyer the different ways your case could be approached, and whether the lawyer would be willing to handle it in the way you prefer. These approaches include:
In order to find a local personal injury lawyer that may take a case on a contingency fee basis, a person should start by visiting the website for their state or local bar association. While each lawyer may have different conditions for this fee arrangement, a person should be sure to discuss all of the terms of the agreement before they hire them.
The reason for this is due to special ethical and professional rules that lawyers and those providing legal advice have to follow. In fact, most of them cannot provide actual legal advice. They can only offer free legal information (e.g., where to find a particular court form, etc.). Thus, if an individual needs actual legal advice ...
Legal aid offices provide free legal assistance to those in need. In general, these offices are typically funded by the federal government or by individual state governments, and will have lawyers on staff that are strictly employed to provide representation to people with low incomes.
Oftentimes, these claims touch upon issues that involve sexual harassment in the workplace , domestic violence, freedom of speech or religion, discrimination in housing or employment, and healthcare or medical treatment.
Another example of an organization that handles specific legal issues is the Natural Resources Defense Council (“NRDC”). Thus, those who wish to file claims for issues affecting the environment should potentially reach out to the NRDC first.
A legal clinic is a service that allows current law students to gain experience by working on real-life cases under the supervision of a faculty advisor (e.g., usually a law school professor who is also a lawyer).
Two significant legal organizations that frequently handle these types of claims include the American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”) and the American Center for Law and Justice (“ACLJ”). Individuals looking to file a social justice claim should also reach out to private organizations that share a similar interest with their case or they should contact their state or local bar association for more information on attorneys who may take their case.