Think of a retainer as a big word for a deposit. As most lawyers get paid for their time. They bill for their time in the form of hours. Each hour they spend on your case they will bill off to your account and work off your retainer (deposit).

So unless you have an attorney that agrees to work on a contingency basis (we’ll get into that in a future article), you will need to make a sizeable deposit into the attorney’s trust account. When I say sizeable I do mean substantial. How substantial? Well that depends.

I know from a close friend who got  caught driving drunk in Fort Lauderdale that her retainer wasn’t cheap at all. Get a DUI charge and you’ll be looking to pay a Fort Lauderdale DUI Attorney $3,000.00 or more. Get charged with murder…well let’s just say you may need to hit lotto!

So make sure that you understand what you will have to pay, when you’ll have to pay it and what you’re getting billed for. And oh yeah…before I forget…make sure you are sitting down when they tell you what the hourly rate they will be billing you.

When the Tampa lawyer you choose tells you how much they bill per hour, you’ll wish you listened to your mother, stayed in school and became an attorney.

Don’t be surprised to hear a figure as high as $500.00 bucks per hour. It will more than likely be somewhere between $150.00 and $350.00 but remember, especially when hiring a Tampa lawyer, you get what you pay for.

Law firm’s ad upsets client Prince George Citizen, on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:56:20 -0800 Later told a $4000 retainer would be required for a lawyer to take on the case, Sword balked at the bill and thought the $300 would be returned. …

Legal Definition of Retain, Retainer The Legal Term * Retain, Retainer * Defined & Explained.

Retainer Law & Legal Definition A retainer fee is the fee which detains an attorney for legal counsel. With this fee, the attorney is certain of the seriousness of your intentions and can …

I am tired of seeing people that I care about lose their homes, businesses and even their marriages due to something that could have been avoided by having the ability to retain an attorney to help them out.

I can’t even imagine how many good people have lost their homes simply because there was no one there to talk to and guide them through the maze of legal filings and contracts. So I decided to start this website and see if I couldn’t help somebody find the right Tampa lawyer to help them with their troubles.

I have spoken to quite a few attorneys as I set out with my personal goal of providing relevant information to the community about finding the right Tampa lawyer. Fortunately it seems that there are a lot of good lawyers down here in the Tampa area. Unfortunately there are some real bad apples as well. Let’s see if we can’t help you differentiate from the two.

I wondered that myself. Are you supposed to just pick up the phone and look for yourself? Are you supposed to ask a neighbor or friend for a referral? How do I know that the attorney that they went to see is any good? It’s not like most people even know what questions to ask of an attorney. If you don’t know what questions to ask, how can you possibly vet out a bad counselor from a good one?

Well, there are two ways that you can find someone reputable on your own. One way is to visit Martindale Hubbell which is a long established directory of attorney’s nationwide. James Martindale established his directory in 1868 to serve as a clearing house on information pertaining to attorneys across the Country.

Since that time, Martindale Hubbell has grown into maintaining information on over 1 million attorneys. The information is quite comprehensive and will allow you to find out a great deal about a Tampa lawyer before you seek out their counsel.

Here is a sample report on an attorney (I don’t think he would mind but I blacked out his name just in case he didn’t want all of this info published (even if it was real easy to find)

Isn’t that some really cool information that you can find out with a few clicks of your mouse? Did you even know this kind of information was available? Probably not. Think about it, where have you ever seen something like this published to the general public?

A good Tampa lawyer can cost you in excess of $300.00 per hour. For that kind of money I want someone who is rated highly by their peers and clients. Take the time to check out the Tampa lawyer you want to work with. It’s better safe than sorry.

The foreclosure forecast for 2010 is extremely ominous. Analysts expect the wave of foreclosures to continue and to be possibly higher than we have already seen. While the media speaks of possible market stabilization, thousands of people are losing their homes with the potential for thousands more to meet the same fate.

With Foreclosures affecting 1 out of every 196 homeowners in the Tampa area we decided to feature information on helping people find a Tampa lawyer who specializes in foreclosure as our initial article.

Our tax dollars have gone to bailout after bailout and stimulus packages that made little if any difference. So it’s not too hard to see why this is happening. The banks may have waited for some time to see if programs like Hope Now would make a difference, but for most of the people I know, it made little measurable impact.

The foreclosure monster is wreaking havoc on communities and it’s pretty important that if you have a chance of saving your home that you immediately speak with a Tampa lawyer who is competent in the foreclosure field. We recently spoke to a local attorney and here is what he had to say about your rights in a foreclosure. (push the play button on the video at left)

I realize that there are many other legal issues that Tampa area residents need assistance with beyond foreclosure. While the media may spend a great deal of their focus on the housing industry, there are many other times that someone will need a reputable and competent Tampa lawyer.

As I post more articles about the legal issues and concerns facing the general public here in the Tampa area, we’ll be interviewing and talking to attorneys who specialize in a myriad of subjects and we’ll give the attorneys who decide to participate a chance to answer your questions. So by all means, please visit often.

Just to give you an idea what you are going to find on this site are reviews and articles on the following legal areas: