Why is It Important That My Family Lawyer Practices Regularly in My County?

Lawyers who don’t spend a significant amount of time handling cases in your county are less familiar with the judges and other lawyers and are therefore working without helpful information.

While this doesn’t mean that a lawyer who doesn’t do much work in the county is necessarily a bad choice, it does mean that all other things being equal, it’s best to have a lawyer that’s on familiar terrain and practices regularly in the courts you’ll be attending.

Why does it matter whether the lawyer does a lot of work in your county? If the lawyer’s good, that’s all that matters, right? Who cares if it’s it’s a Suffolk County lawyer doing work in Plymouth County? After all, you want the best lawyer you can possibly get.

It’s true—and obvious—that skill is a key factor in hiring the right lawyer. You certainly don’t want to hire an unreliable lawyer just because that lawyer practices mostly in your county.

However, in choosing between two comparable lawyers, there are a couple of reasons to favor the one that practices in-county.

If you can find a lawyer who is familiar with your county, that lawyer is much more likely to be familiar with the other involved parties: judges, lawyers, clerks, court case managers. And this information can assist in making certain decisions on the case.

For example, a judge may have certain thoughts or leanings on a particular issue. Although judges do their best to be fair and consider each case independently, they’re human. Therefore, their decisions on a particular issue under a particular set of circumstances is a factor in how they will likely handle that issue in the future. And lawyers who appear before a certain judge regularly are in a better position to gather this information.

Also, different lawyers require different approaches. If your lawyer is familiar with the other lawyer, that may inform how your lawyer plans to handle the case and what strategy to implement. One size doesn’t fit all. Different lawyers sometimes require different approaches.

Let me stress that this article is not taking the position that it’s necessarily a bad idea to hire a Middlesex County attorney for your Bristol County case. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, and it may work out just fine. However, if your lawyer is more familiar with the personalities and tendencies of the judges and other lawyers involved, there’s value to that.

Here, at Farias Family Law, we focus on Plymouth, Bristol and Norfolk Counties for this reason. We’ve decided that if we want to do our best work for clients, honing in on these counties and learning them inside out gives our clients the best chance at achieving their goals.

If you have any questions about divorce or any other family law issues, feel free to contact us.