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Points To Be Considered While Taking Legal Help
Knowing general legal principles and procedures and the substantive law and procedure for the areas of law in which the lawyer practices, investigating facts, identifying issues, ascertaining client objectives, considering possible options, and developing and advising the client on appropriate courses of action, knowing general legal principles and procedures and the substantive law and procedure for the areas of law in which the lawyer practices, investigating facts, identifying issues, ascertaining client objectives, considering possible options, and developing and advising the client on appropriate courses of action, implementing, as each matter requires, the chosen course of action through the application of appropriate skills, including legal research, analysis, application of the law to the relevant facts, writing and drafting, negotiation, alternative dispute resolution advocacy, and problem-solving ability, communicating at all stages of a matter in a timely and effective manner that is appropriate to the age and abilities of the client, performing all functions conscientiously, diligently, and in a timely and cost-effective manner, applying intellectual capacity, judgment, and deliberation to all functions, and of course, a competent lawyer must find the time and money to pursue appropriate professional development to maintain and enhance his or her legal knowledge and skills.
The explanation to the definition of the competent lawyer recognizes that a lawyer may be asked for or may be expected to give advice on non-legal matters, such as the business, policy, or social implications involved in the question or course the client should choose, and that in many instances the lawyer’s experience will be such that the lawyer’s views on non-legal matters will be of real benefit to the client. People do not quarrel with these admirable indicia of competence, but the Law Society of Upper Canada is dreaming if it expects these standards to be met by the mass production artists and price cutters in the trenches. As competence has a price, competent legal services cannot be provided by a computer program or by a lawyer running a mass-production practice. Knowledgeable legal services must be tailored to the individual recipients of such services. This is deceptive to hold otherwise, assembly-line legal service is no more desirable than assembly-line medicine. Functioning Group on Lawyers and Real Estate was on the right track with its suggested fee schedule, for it permits the work to be done competently. All is about time the law society recognized that price-cutting and mass production practice is incompatible with quality service. It applies not only to real estate law, but to all legal services, whether solicitors work or barristers work, that are provided to the ordinary public. Insufficient fees, whether paid privately or funded by legal aid, are incompatible with quality service.
