Let’s say that you’ve scheduled a free consultation with a lawyer. How do you get the most out of it without time running out?

Pankaj Raval of Carbon Law Group breaks down what to do before a law consultation.

First of all, make sure that you’ve sent over the list of all the parties involved. Lawyers can’t represent conflicting parties, so this is the first thing they need to know in order to make sure you can work together!

Second, send over any of the materials in question, like the contract you’d like reviewed. Then they can look at it ahead of time.

And third, always let them know in advance — preferably in a written, bulleted list — what your concerns are. Then they can focus the conversation!

So again: (1) A list of parties, (2) The materials in question, and (3) The concerns you’d like addressed.

This way you get the most out of your free consultation!

“A common issue we run into is that people sign up for a 10- or 15-minute free consultation, but they’re oftentimes not prepared. So before you actually meet with that lawyer, make sure first they know who the parties are, because we have an ethical duty as lawyers to make sure we’re not representing conflicting parties. Second, it’s really important that you send them the contract or agreement or issue that you’re dealing with ahead of time, so they can take a quick look at it to see, okay, how complex is this, and how much time would this really take? And the third thing is, we’d like to know what your concerns are, so sending us a bulleted list in writing, by email, ahead of time, is really gonna help us understand, okay, what is this conversation about, and is this something that we can help with? And that essentially is how you get the most out of your 10- to 15-minute free consultation. Again, it’s sharing the parties, it’s sending them the contracts or issues involved, and then making a list of your concerns and sending that over before you even talk to that lawyer.”