MY EXPERIENCE WITH "TV LAWYERS"

I am addicted to late night TV, so I sit up and watch reruns on HGTV or the Super Station. That's where I saw the TV lawyer.

A congenial man in his early fifties with slightly graying hair, a pleasant smile and convincing voice. He told me that if I needed disability benefits, he could help me get them. In 30 seconds he had me convinced that he would be working just for me.

It never occurred to me that he wasn't a lawyer at all; he was an actor who played a lawyer on TV commercials. But he plastered an 800 telephone number on the screen and was so warm and convincing that I wrote down the number. Next day I gave him a call.

A woman in a call center answered my call. I could hear several other operators carrying on conversations with other callers. She took my number and promised that someone would call me back the same day. I wasn't really expecting the TV lawyer to call but then I didn't really know what to expect.

Later that afternoon another woman called me. She asked a lot of questions about my disability and explained what her firm could do for me. Since it didn't cost anything unless I got my benefits approved, I agreed to sign up. About a week later, a big packet of forms arrived from Chicago. So, the TV lawyer wasn't in Huntsville, at all. We would be doing business by mail.

I completed the forms and sent them back. There was some infrequent contact by mail and one or two phone calls in the following year. Finally, my hearing date approached. About two weeks before my hearing, a man from the disability firm in Chicago called to explain the hearing. We spent 20 minutes on the phone. He told me to arrive at the hearing half-an-hour early and my lawyer would meet me there.

As expected, my lawyer met me at the hearing location. He wasn't at all like the handsome TV lawyer. He was OK but didn't seem to know much about me. After all, he had never met me or spoken to me. We had talked for about 5 minutes when the hearing clerk came out and interrupted us.

"Our 10 o'clock hearing was a no-show," she said. "The judge wants to go ahead and start your hearing right away."

So, having talked to my lawyer for less than 10 minutes, we headed into the hearing as complete strangers....going into a hearing that would determine my financial destiny. I began to wonder if maybe that TV lawyer had let me down.

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The moral to this story is to think about it before you call a TV lawyer on a distant 1-800 phone number. You never know who you are calling. Almost certainly, these calls are not answered in Huntsville, and probably not in Alabama. You may be hiring a lawyer 1500 miles away. And you won't meet him/her until a few minutes before your hearing starts. All of your contacts will be by mail or long distance phone calls. If that's what you want, then call the TV guy. However, if you want a local representative with an office here in Huntsville, this may not be your best option. If you want someone who can meet early in the process and get to know before the hearing, maybe a local representative is a better option. (My clients come to my office at least twice before a hearing and they have my personal cell phone number). Certainly, if you want more personal attention to your case, the faraway 1-800 lawyer may not be your first choice.

Ironically, the TV law firm won't even fly one of their lawyers down to Alabama for your hearing. They will call a lawyer in Alabama and contract with him or her to handle the hearing for them. Just the hearing. So, you may end up with a local lawyer, just one that you didn't get to choose and never had a chance to meet. The TV lawyer chooses a local lawyer for you.

So, why not choose your own local representative?