Today, whether you the a scientist or a lawyer or happen to work at any of a number of prestigious jobs, you usually find that there are just two tiers of jobs in your field – there is a small number of permanent positions that pays reasonably well, and there are the have-nots.

These aren’t people who have no college education. Usually, these are people with the same kinds of qualifications as the people in the well-paying positions. But they are forced to accept shadow jobs that have no prestige and no perks.

Most new lawyer jobs today pay you what paralegals or legal secretaries used to make 15 years ago. They have the same qualifications and the same potential as any other lawyer. But they are hired as contract workers and always will be. And oh, they will never be on path to making partner. Their salaries may be satisfactory at $50,000 a year – but it isn’t what the lawyer is supposed be making.

The law firms have a good argument to defend their decision to strip down what being a lawyer means. Cutting down pay means they won’t need to ship jobs to India and China. And for the pay cut, they expect less – lawyers no longer have to stay married to the office. They are not expected to travel or give their lives up. They feel they these new lawyer jobs are kind of family friendly.

People blame the recession quite squarely for all of this of course. Clients just aren’t willing to pay lawyers their inflated rates anymore. Law firms have found themselves in a position where they can’t really cut down on the kind of salary they offer to all the lawyers.

If they did that, they would lose talent, and their reputation. Among the legal profession, they would come to be known as low-level firms. For this reason, they’ve devised this ingenious two-tier system – where they continue to pay a handful of associate lawyers what they always did, but pay all the other lawyers a fraction of that sum. It gets the job done and it helps them save face.

It’s like the associate lawyers are the union workers and everyone else is just a poor bloke who is new to the game. They call them career associates. It’s like outsourcing right within this country – to a poor part of town or to a poor suburb. Lawyers fresh out of legal school with $150,000 loans find this very inconvenient. But there are lawyers who find this very convenient too. The traditional career path of the lawyer requires total dedication. People quickly burn out living life like that.

The point is that in such stressful situation you simply have to choose the best one. Not an Atlanta personal injury lawyer, but THE Atlanta personal injury lawyer. You must avoid all possible problems you can have with a lawyer (you probably have enough of your own ones) and this means you have to choose the best lawyer you can find.

How to tell which personal injury lawyer is the best

The main problem in finding a good attorney in Atlanta is personal injury lawyer’s abundance. There are simple too many lawyers in this city to check all of them personally. Fortunately we have the Internet, so you should start from sifting them through your search engine.

Simply type “Atlanta personal injury lawyer” and choose first ten sites you’ll see. The other law companies are probably either too small or not diligent enough to build the proper website for themselves. Then have a good look at the site you found. Reject those with too much apparent “search engine-oriented” content – long articles about nothing mean only that the lawyer is witty, but not intelligent.

After that you should have only four or five possibilities left. The number is low enough to visit the lawyers personally. During the visit watch them carefully – you don’t want professional optimists, there are lots of them in Atlanta. Personal injury lawyer you look for should be serious, down-to-earth and not too open. You need the lawyer for the court, not for friendship.

The most common problems

There are many possible problems, but they have only one source – dishonesty. I don’t mean the situation when your lawyer is telling you white lies. I think of the situations when he will keep telling you “everything is going to be all right” whatever the situation will be. There are plenty of such attorneys in Atlanta. A personal injury lawyer that will tell you “I am not sure if can win” is a rare bird indeed, but the most precious one, too.

Some of the things you may want to ask the lawyer when you talk over the phone or meet include, how much experience do you have with legal issues similar to mine, how recently have you handled a case like mine, how was it resolved , what was the result. If you end up meeting the lawyer in person for a consultation, you shouldn’t expect it to last any longer than 15 minutes to a half-hour. Write down all the information you get from each lawyer. Review your notes a couple of times, and take some time to think things over before making a decision. Then, make an appointment to discuss your situation further with the lawyer who seems best for you. Before the meeting, make notes about your legal situation so you can easily go over the important points with the lawyer. Bring the names, addresses and telephone numbers of everyone connected with your case (including witnesses), as well as all papers involved in your case. Some lawyers may ask to see the papers before the meeting. If the one you’re meeting does, fax everything the lawyer requests as quickly as possible so he/she has enough time to go over it all before meeting with you. It depends on how you feel after meeting with them. How comfortable do you feel with the answers the lawyer provided to your questions? If you asked the lawyer how he/she handled a case similar to yours, are you satisfied with the results? Base your decision on how well you feel the lawyer can handle your case, rather than being concerned about his/her age. Just remember that even though a lawyer may have been in practice for 15 or 20 years, he/she may not have as much experience with your particular type of situation as one who has more recently graduated from law school.

Source: ArticleTrader.com