You or your loved one has been charged with a crime, you’re probably asking yourself
this if you’re watching this video, where do I turn and who do I call?
Hi, I’m Shawn Hamp.
I’m a Criminal Defense Trial Lawyer practicing law here in the State of Arizona.
Hiring a criminal lawyer is not like any other type of legal services that you will go out
and research and retain.
Usually—lots of people use lawyers every day.
They use them for bankruptcy or family law cases.
It’s very common to hire an attorney.
But, hopefully, for you at least, it’s not a common occurrence to hire a criminal lawyer
every day.
So, it’s not the type of the thing that you can just ask your family and friends for
referrals, unless you happen to have a lot of family and friends that get charged with
crimes, but usually that’s not the case.
So, you’re going to have to do some research to find a good criminal lawyer.
The first place that I would recommend that anyone go to is to the Local Bar website.
For Arizona, that’s the Arizona State Bar.
They’re at AZBar.org.
That’s the first place I would look because when you go to that website, you can type
in criminal lawyer, you can type in the jurisdiction that they’re in.
I’m in Kingman, Arizona, you can look up a criminal lawyer in Kingman.
You can look one up in Phoenix, Tempe, Flagstaff, and they should have criminal lawyers that
are in that area, that you can start to look at and start to research.
One of the good things about the Arizona Bar website is that they also have their attorney
discipline record is on display.
If there’s no suspensions or probations for the attorney, it’s going to show up
there, on the Arizona Bar website.
Now, it’s not complete information but it is a start.
The Arizona Bar website will also have any records of malpractice insurance.
So, if someone does carry malpractice insurance, it will say that and usually a responsible
attorney will have malpractice insurance.
It’s just a prudent thing to do.
It will also have the year that person was admitted to the State Bar, and that will give
you an idea of how much experience that lawyer has.
Also, it will describe what practice specialties that that attorney has.
So, you could find an attorney and all they do is criminal law, like myself.
Or, you can find another attorney and maybe they do criminal law and bankruptcy or criminal
law and family law.
You can find out how much of their practice area is focused on a particular area.
The other website that I would suggest that you go visit is a website called Avvo.com.
Avvo.com is an attorney directory.
It’s fairly new, in the past few years.
And, Avvo.com attempts to rate every single attorney based on public records and give
them a rating assignment.
Those assignments are based on discipline history and years of experience and industry
recognition.
It will also have a great outline of some attorney’s profiles, it will have a nice
resume about their background and experience.
So, that’s a good place to look and at least have a start.
It will list their experience, where they’ve worked at, where they went to law school,
things like that.
One thing I would really suggest you look at and what the bulk of Avvo’s ratings are
based on is industry recognition and referrals from other attorneys.
So, if you go on there and you see that other attorneys from similar practice areas recommend
this attorney, that’s probably the highest compliment a fellow attorney can give to another
attorney, is to say that they recommend them.
So, I’m on Avvo.com myself, you can find my profile there.
I’m very proud of the recommendations that my colleagues have given me over the years.
So, that’s another site I would suggest that you go to.
Then, once you start to find some candidates, that you want to research and want to meet
with, I would suggest calling those attorneys.
You’re going to find out real quickly which attorneys are going to be responsive to your
needs, which ones are going to have the best organized staff to deal with your situation.
You know, you’re going to find out real quick which attorney really wants to meet
your services.
I would suggest that you schedule a meeting.
You talk with the staff.
And then, ultimately, gauge your comfort level with that attorney and that is ultimately
what you have to do is trust yourself and trust that you have a good connection or relation
with that attorney.
So, most attorneys give a free consultation or they’ll at least have a low-cost introductory
meeting.
That’s the best way you’re going to get a gauge on whether you think you can work
with an attorney, ultimately.
So, I want to thank you for watching this video.
I hope it helps in some small way.
I’d like you to watch my other videos on YouTube that we posted.
And, if you ever have any questions, feel free to give us a call, 928-753-6868 and always
feel free to visit my website at HampLaw.com.