What made you hire your real estate attorney? (Not a marketing piece)
Real estate lawyer here - 10 years out of law school, experience all across the field, decent client base of some entrepreneurs and family offices but still looking to branch out and eventually get someone working under me.  

I’m tired of listening to other lawyers about marketing and business development and wanted to ask the crowd:  what made you hire your attorney?  What made you fire the other guy or gal?  What kind of traits make you keep going back to that attorney?
[{"id": "ih00d3h", "text": "Responsiveness is one trait that is very important. I will likely never someone\u2019s biggest client, but I need to feel like I can get quick responses and turn around times when critically needed.  My current attorney makes me feel like I am his only client.  He\u2019s awesome that way.  \n\nUnderstanding of the level of service I need and what I am looking for out of my attorney.  I am not one who is going to read the legalese sections of contracts and leases and scrutinize the language closely.  I want him to do that and I am going to trust his judgement to tell me when to accept reasonable requests by the other party and when to push back. I had one attorney who would mark up every document as if I wanted it 100% in my favor and then ask me what changes I wanted to give on.  That was daunting for me and I felt like we never made progress because I needed his professional opinion and he only gave me a technical review.  \n\nLastly, I think the relationship between attorney and client is a two way street and a client should engage their attorney like a team member.  I always keep my attorney updated on deals that I have in the pipeline that I might be asking for his help on down the road.  I treat him like a business partner and he treats me the same way.  This sounds backwards, but part of being chosen to be someone\u2019s attorney is closing a client that you like working with and you feel like you can be \u201cpartners\u201d with. \n\nHope this helps.", "replies": [{"id": "ih06got", "text": "That was a helpful response.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ih04am7", "text": "Be a reasonable attorney. Read potential leases very carefully, but don\u2019t go overboard with every possible but unlikely risk. Be good at dealing with corporate staff attorneys.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ih0jqsk", "text": "Quick and responsive work at a good price helps.  Some just charge more for a B quality service and leaves the customer a \u00ab\u00a0meh\u00a0\u00bb impression.  Offer A level service and a fair price in other words.\n\nAlso one that looks to save clients money in the big picture.  Doing a technical review of default clauses or insurance clauses in a lease is maybe great, but those are not likely to save your client money on day one of business, a good review of operating cost wording is maybe more a money saver for tenant (and landlords won\u2019t like it).\n\nPersonality and rapport with client counts, not everyone will jive with everyone else.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ih2iwug", "text": "Attorneys depend a lot on word of mouth for business. You get word of mouth by providing value to your clients. Value and price while correlated to some degree are not 1-1 correlations, especially in the business world. Many people are very willing to pay more if you are going to provide more value. \n\nSo how do you provide value to your clients?\n\nThe vast majority of attorneys do exactly what their clients ask them to. Unfortunately most people either don't know what they need done, or don't even know how to ask for what they want. So they ask for something close to it. \n\nExample: \n\nA client comes to you and asks you to do a contract review. Most lawyers say sure and provide a detailed technical analysis of the contract with a list of all the things that aren't in your favor and how to change them to your favor. \n\nThis is the wrong answer. 99% of the time the client did not want a technical analysis of a contract. They are probably on the lookout for something specific or a few specific items and don't actually care about the rest of it. You didn't ask though and so you didn't know. \n\n&amp;#x200B;\n\nSo what would I like an attorney to actually do for me:\n\n\\-- I wan't them to understand what I am trying to get done (most will never take the time to understand what, why, and how, and never be able to provide adequate service because of that). If you are going to bill me 6 hours for a contract review, I would much rather you bill me for 1-2 more hours and actually understand what is going on via a telephone call/zoom call/sit down meeting so that you understand what I am trying to achieve instead of wasting 6 hours doing something I didn't want or need you to do. \n\n\\--I wan't an attorney to keep me aware of potential issues but not necessarily every single possible issue. If you are doing a contract review for example, break it down into easy to digest portions. Explain it like you would to your grandmother or elderly mother who doesn't work in the law field. Give a list of the major items that are problems and the implications, and offer a solution to achieve what both your client and the other side of the contact are trying to achieve. After that, let me know about the items of lesser consequence, but don't give me a marked up contract with a billion edits to it. \n\n\\--I wan't an attorney to be real with me. Why is this so hard. Talk to me like I am a person, not like I am your law professor or a law student. \n\n\\--Make complex ideas easy to understand. The truth is if you can't explain something in plain language and in short order, you don't understand it yourself and have no business touching it. Also I am hiring you so that I don't have to take a crash course on whatever issue I have. I don't want to be an attorney or do an attorneys work, stop making me. \n\n\\--Be relatively responsive: I don't need you to email me back within 5 minutes, but can you at least acknowledge it by the end of the day. Thanks. \n\n\\--Communication is key. Don't tell me you can take me on when you don't have time. If this is a 2-3 hour billable project, I expect it to be done within the next few days. Don't make me wait 2 weeks for it. At a minimum let me know that you have a lot going on and that it will take you longer than usual to get my work done. Set a reminder in your calendar to check back in or review where you are. If you quote me two weeks, you get a week in, and realize that you had 2 emergency hearings scheduled for the week ahead and now your schedule just got pushed back by a week from the extra work, let me know about it, and not 2 weeks later when you finally deliver the work I hired you for. Just tell the desk secretary to give me a call and explain what is happening. \n\n\\--Stop using boiler plate contracts you haven't read. I have no problem with a boiler plate contract. I hate it when I get a boiler plate contract and there is stupid shit that is part of it that has nothing to do with what I am trying to get done.\n\n\\--Bonus points if you can write a contract that you don't need a law degree or be an old English major to read. Seriously, stop using whereby/hereby/it is decreed, and other stupid words that died 200 years ago because they sound stupid. If you can't write a contract that doesn't use a shit ton of legalese, you don't understand what you are writing about. It also makes you sound like you just graduated college and have no real world experience as an attorney because someone told you it was the way to write a contract.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]