The World’s Best Lawyer*
Just today, I was looking up a phone number of another law office here in town, and noticed that they had proclaimed themselves to have “earned” some award as one of the outstanding family law lawyers in Sioux Falls. I found that curious, because I deal with each and every family law lawyer in this town, and (no offense to them, they’re fine) they are NOT the best family law lawyers in this community, in this state, probably not even in their quadrant of town.
This is not a new phenomenon. There are, I’m guessing, dozens of organizations quick and happy to proclaim you the “best” at something if only you join their inner circle by paying a sum of money each year. These vanity awards, given out only to the lawyers who pay the organizations behind them, are false and misleading. They do not rate “their” lawyers against all other lawyers. They only rate those lawyers who pay them, and - guess what? - their lawyers are always, without fail, the ones who are awarded the highest distinction.
Do they name the league MVP in sports based on who pays them the most? No. Do we elect the candidate who spends the most? Well, usually, but it does come down to actual votes, at least if you aren’t Donny Trump. It shouldn’t be that way in the law, either. If you get nothing else out of this, please be very wary of anyone who claims to have been named the “top” or “best” or “super” or “outstanding” anything, because we do not have such a system in the law that has been voted on by the entire membership or even the majority of those in the know.
There came a point (and this is a few years ago, and no, I’m not going to name names) when I saw the name of a large-firm lawyer listed as the “best” family law lawyer in Sioux Falls. I have been practicing since 1988, in Sioux Falls since 1992, hundreds of cases per year, and now (as a child support referee) hundreds more child support hearings per year. I had never seen this person in any of those cases - not once. I don’t even know if they practice family law, to be honest, but I can assure you they do not do it very much if I’ve never come across them in 30 years.
I actually got an email the other day from someone offering to help me obtain the highest legal rating. Like - “it doesn’t matter whether you’re any good or not, I can get you that coveted 4-star review.” I dumped it.
We are not a large group - family law lawyers in Sioux Falls - there are probably 15-20 of us who do this all the time, who base a substantial portion (if not all) of our practice to family law and divorces and child support and custody and visitation and guardianship and adoption and prenups and all the messy stuff that goes into figuring out how to move forward when families change.
This is also a question I’ve posed to other lawyers, whether family law lawyers or not. Do they ever receive surveys, or opportunities to rate other lawyers. There is an organization - Martindale Hubbell - who does do a lawyer review rating system within our profession. Over the past 30 years, I’ve maybe gotten a rating sheet from them a handful of times, and most of the lawyers on the list they are asking me to rate are people I don’t encounter (because they do some other type of law and we never cross paths professionally, even if I know them personally through lawyer events or some other group). I’ve never - not once - gotten one from any other group. Let that sink in. Never. Not once. No one has ever asked me to rate the family law lawyers in this town, or provided anything close to an exhaustive list of those who practice in this field.
Vanity and lawyers go together - we all want to be known for our professionalism and ability in this field. But looking to see who paid for the awarding of some certificate to his or her law office is not a viable way to do that. You remember that old “Who’s Who Among American High School Students” thing they tried to sell you when you were graduating. You, too, could be in that book if only you bought a copy, and somehow that made you “Who’s Who.” These are fundamentally no different, except Who’s Who isn’t trying to say that these are the best high school students in the country. These “rating” systems are purely designed to give that impression. It is false, misleading, and wrong.
I saw an article in Reuters (it is from December 22, 2021 and you can find it online) that sums it up pretty well. I’m attaching a link below so you can see for yourself. The takeaways from this article are exactly the same as I’m posing to you now - they are scams. One person even was able to get his child’s pet chicken Zippy named as a top lawyer - seriously.
I can suggest another method of not finding out about good lawyers - look at a rating service. I can tell you I’m getting a lot of negative “reviews” on things (I don’t look at Yelp or any of that myself but people do weigh in on such things or on my website or other public forums). The last time I looked at any of those, I discovered that about half of those folks didn’t think I was fair or ethical or competent or any good at all. Come to find that all those negative reviews were from people who were not my clients - they were the folks on the other side of the aisle. Maybe that’s a compliment, though I’m not going out of my way to upset people, I do know that happens in this business. It’s just part of the job.
I have two recommendations for how to find a good lawyer. First, ask people you know and trust (friends, neighbors, co-workers) if they can recommend someone who will be good. Don’t throw it out there on FB or anything, because you will get both those who support a person and those who have been opposed by that person and not get a consistent message. Second, schedule a consultation with the lawyers you are considering (especially if that consultation is free, as it is in my office) and see how you feel about whether he or she answered your questions and made you feel like they knew what they were doing. Your relationship with your lawyer is very much an across-the-desk relationship and you need to be able to confide in that person, trust their experience and knowledge, know that they’ve been through all this before, and can handle your particular needs. That’s why - to be frank - I offer a free consultation. I am confident that if you sit across the desk from me for a consultation, you are going to feel confident in me as your lawyer (maybe you won’t, I can’t say that every person who’s ever met with me hired me, because they all haven’t). But I’m willing to stake my professional reputation on it - every time.
*I’m not sure there is or isn’t such a designation. If there is, I’m declaring myself the winner. At no cost to me.