If you’re considering hiring a lawyer, then you probably have a number of questions: am I likely to win my case? How much will it cost? How long will it take? What information do I need to provide? Will I go to court? How exactly will the lawyer I hire help me? Attempting to find answers to these questions online can be maddening, and while you might like to ask an attorney, if you don’t have one as a friend—or even if you do—that can get complicated as well. A relatively new option for finding answers to your questions is viewing legal videos posted online by attorneys. These informational videos are designed by lawyers to help answer common questions that come up during their first meetings with prospective clients, and can help you better understand the process. Here’s a breakdown of how looking for and watching these videos compares with seeking out a lawyer to speak with in person.

Viewing Legal Videos Online

A variety of legal videos are hosted online at viewmylawyer.com, which is essentially a directory of attorney videos. These videos are sorted by geographic location and by type of legal practice, making it a cinch to find the type of legal video for which you’re looking. Watching these videos will allow you to judge for yourself whether the lawyer seems knowledgeable, is professional, and seems in general like the kind of person with whom you’d like to work. If he or she does, then you can arrange an initial meeting with him or her, confident that you have a good sense of the kind of person you’re visiting.

Asking A Lawyer In Person

If you decide that your first step is to speak with a lawyer in person, then first you’ll have to find a lawyer in your region—and one who happens to be available to meet. Your options for finding that lawyer include asking friends and relatives, using the Yellow Pages and searching online using a legal directory. This process can be time consuming, and despite the fact that we’re living in the Information Age, it can be awfully difficult to find reliable information about professionals online, whether they’re lawyers or contractors or plumbers. At best, you’ll go into your meeting knowing that a friend of a friend said the lawyer did a good job; at worst, you’ll know nothing aside from where the firm is located, and the type of law they practice.

In the end, watching legal videos online can save you a great deal of time. You’ll be able to evaluate whether the lawyer is smart, knowledgeable, confident, aggressive, the opposite of any or all of those, or something else entirely, and make your own judgment about whether you want to meet with that lawyer in person or not. In addition, you’ll likely find answers to a number of questions in the process of viewing legal videos—questions that will help you make a more informed decision about whether hiring a lawyer is the right decision, and if so, what kind of lawyer you need to hire.

Tags: ask a lawyer. legal videos