Can Legal Aid Give You The Best Help?
There are a lot of people that are under the impression that a legal aid attorney is somehow inferior to a paid attorney that you would independently hire on your own. The thing is though, this is not always the case. There are a lot of paid attorneys that are not much help at all and then there are legal aid attorneys that are superior in many ways. Just as you can find new and veteran attorneys in a private law firm, you are going to find the same in just about any legal aid office.
Many attorneys start out in the legal aid offices because they are not able to get employment anywhere else, simply because they are fresh out of law school. Does this mean that this attorney cannot give you the best representation? No, not at all. Maybe they do not have a long laundry list of cases that they have won, but they are fresh out of school and probably still have a lot of knowledge fresh in their minds. Also, they are eager to build their reputation so they are more likely to serve you better than other attorneys who already have established reputations and careers.
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Then there are the legal aid attorneys that have an incredible amount of experience but they stay with legal aid, instead of going with a more expensive private firm because they like helping those who are not regularly able to get their own attorneys hired. They feel a sense of pride in being able to help those in need. It is sort of their way of giving back to the community, even though they generally end up with a salary much lower than that of a privately hired attorney.
As you can see, there are many options for you and you want to make sure that you are reviewing as many of them as possible. Do not stereotype and assume that the legal aid office will not be able to give you the legal assistance that you need. On the other side of things, do not assume that your privately hired attorney is going to automatically win the case just because the other person has a legal aid attorney.
It is important to make sure that you are always looking at the situation from as many angles as possible. Make sure that you are sitting down in a legal consultation before hiring an attorney. This is the best way to make sure that you are getting the best help possible. Also, if you qualify for help from the legal aid department and you think that this might be a case that will drag on for a very long time, you might want to consider going that route as many people have ended up having to file bankruptcy because of the attorney fees that they have incurred.
