Fort Worth bankruptcy attorney Reed Allmand has a great post up about how to tell if your bankruptcy attorney is a lemon. Reed’s top five tipoffs:
1. The attorney has an exclusively on-line presence and you have never met him or her in person. (Note: some disagree with this, and think on-line only lawyering is the wave of the future).
2. Weeks have gone by and the bankruptcy attorney has not filed your petition with the court. Always a bad sign.
3. The bankruptcy attorney is unable to answer your questions about the process, or to refer you to a source with the answers. I would add to this an unwillingness to research the answer if not known. No one knows everything, but a decent attorney should have a basic idea about where your answer lies.
4. The bankruptcy attorney lets staff give out legal advice. Reed says: run the other way!
5. The bankruptcy attorney has a bad reputation in the community. Not the easiest thing for you to smoke out, but lots of negative opinions are worth at least a red flag.
By Doug Beaton