January 27, 2014 By Wallin & Klarich

You may not be aware of this but there are many people who advertise themselves as lawyers when in fact, they are not lawyers at all. These fake lawyers are making promises that cannot be achieved in order to convince you to hire them. In most instances, their services require you to hand over cash to them before they offer their services. However, paying money up front would be a major error in judgment.

State Bar of California Going After Phony Lawyers

Persons falsely advertising themselves as attorneys are not allowed to legally appear in court. Non-lawyers are not allowed to sign their name on legal documents. They are committing a felony by proclaiming to be lawyers when they are not.
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The State Bar of California is launching a new effort to go after any person involved in the “unauthorized” practice of law. This new unit will investigate such cases and work to shut down non-lawyers.

How to Protect Yourself from Fake Lawyers

If you are looking for a lawyer in California, you can go to the official State Bar of California website to quickly find out if an attorney you are interested in hiring is indeed an attorney. The website has a QuickSearch tool in which you can type in the person’s name and valuable information appears within seconds.

This will help you determine if the person is really legally authorized to practice law in California. If the person’s name does not appear after a search, that person is probably not an attorney.

The State Bar of California website lists information such as how long the person has been licensed to practice law in California and if the attorney has been subject to any state bar discipline. If the attorney previously violated any of the strict State Bar of California rules, it will be reflected on the website.

Lawyer Rating Sites

A wise consumer will not end an investigation after verifying the attorney’s ability to practice law. Much like you would use Yelp to check reviews of local businesses or Rotten Tomatoes to check movie reviews, sites including AVVO.com and Lawyers.com exist to rate lawyers based on recommendations from clients and peers.

AVVO provides attorneys with a score ranging from 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest. Lawyers.com rates lawyers on a scale of 0 to 5. Both websites also list important information on each attorney as well as reviews from peers and past clients.

As long as you go through a short research process before hiring an attorney, chances are very low that you will end up paying money to a person who is not a lawyer or who doesn’t have adequate experience to handle your type of legal matter.

Call the Top-Rated Attorneys at Wallin & Klarich

If you or a loved one is looking for an attorney, we understand you are going through a difficult time. At Wallin & Klarich, our attorneys have over 30 years of experience helping persons with complex criminal charges or family law matters.

Many of our skilled attorneys have a superb 10.0 rating on AVVO and our law firm has earned a 5.0 AV rating on Lawyers.com. Our attorneys know to obtain the best possible outcome in your case.

Our offices are located in Los Angeles, Sherman Oaks, Torrance, Tustin, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, West Covina and Victorville.

Call us at (888) 280-6839 today for a free phone consultation. We will be there when you call.

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