It depends. 

You should never rely on advice you get from the web. Lawyers place a priority on learning the law and servicing clients, not updating information on a firm’s web site.  You should talk to a lawyer for advice.

An email does not convey tone or allow for many follow up questions. You should talk to your lawyer in person, ideally, so you can get a feel for that person and how confident he or she may be in the opinions given. If it is not convenient to meet your lawyer in person, you should, at a minimum, talk to the lawyer over the phone and not rely on text or other communications for legal advice.

A lawyer will often tell you when he or she does not specialize in an area.  Listen to this information and know what it means. The lawyer is telling you, I am not really sure of what I am saying, meaning, you should contact a different lawyer for the question you’re asking. This, for you, will create extra work, but do not cut corners and try to get one lawyer to speculate into areas of law where the lawyer does not  practice regularly.

Look at the lawyer’s professional background and how confident he seems in his conclusions.  Look at how much experience the lawyer has handling cases similar to the area where you have questions. Ask the lawyer for specific examples of how a court addressed similar matters. If the lawyer has detailed and persuasive information off the top of his head, chances are, he lives and breaths the type of issue you have, and you should place weight on the conclusions provided by that attorney.

When in doubt, seek a second or third legal opinion, even if you have to pay for it. If this sounds expensive, just think how much more expensive it will be to retain an attorney who develops your file, only to decide that you would prefer to go with an other attorney; only, the second attorney will need to bill for his or her time to review everything done by the first lawyer. It is better to shop around sooner, rather than later.

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