Congratulations! You are now entitled to free legal advice for life!
Don't
worry if you haven't contacted this person in years and couldn't
correctly spell their name without looking it up on Facebook. All you
need to do to hook that shit up is just shoot off an email (or call her parents and tell THEM to do it for you!) and demand your
entitlement.
Bonus points if you insist that the
lawyer call you, rather than setting out your issue in an email that
they can address at their convenience. Fuck that. Your time is precious!
After all, your problem needs to be addressed NOW because you ignored
it for so long. So, make sure to tell her that you're only available
between 7 and 8pm tonight. She won't be doing anything else, then.
And,
it's not like the lawyer has anything better to do than to address your
problem. It will just take "a quick minute," anyway. Well, maybe two,
since you don't actually know what your question should be and didn't
bother to gather the information before you contacted the lawyer out of
the blue. But hey! Your cousin's step-mother once babysat for her, so
she totally owes you.
Don't bother determining what
kind of law your "friend" actually practices. It's not like you ever
read her blog or anecdotes about her clients. If all she talks about is
litigation, she should be perfectly capable of telling you when your
employer's estimated tax payments should be due. Lawyers are just like
doctors, right? They all know everything about every field of practice. I
mean, come on! You always just walk into a podiatrist for a pap smear.
And
you should expect that she can fix your problem - over the phone, too - without looking at a single scrap of paper. You can just hold that
non-existent contract right up to the mouthpiece on your Nokia and she
can interpret what you really meant when you agreed to pay that guy
from the Home Depot parking lot upfront to rewire your house. She can
also get you out of your eviction, tell you how to get out of having to
pay for your repossessed car, and determine if your existing counsel (the one you're actually paying to answer these questions) is doing the right things.
You have the right to expect your free legal advice to conform to your expectations and wants. By all means, you should feel free to argue with your pro bono counsel if you don't like what she is telling you. You do not have to accept being told that you don't have a case or that you are in the wrong.
But the most important thing is to NEVER, EVER offer anything in return. It would be insulting to
the lawyer to invite her over for dinner in exchange for you saving the
hundreds or thousands of dollars you'd have to pay a "real" lawyer.
After all, even a cup of coffee could be awkward, considering you
haven't even seen this person for five years. Don't bother sending a thank you card, either. An unemployed lawyer should be happy to work for absolutely nothing, just to keep their skills sharpened.
