linguist & software engineer in Lenapehoking; jewish ancom trans woman.
since twitter's burning gonna try bringing my posts about language stuff and losing my shit over star wars and such here - hi!
I do not urgently need a lawyer, but I do have situations where I would like to tell, say, Blue Cross Blue Shield or Equifax that they will hear from my lawyer, then follow up with the correct sternly worded letter from a lawyer.
I know lawyers have particular specialties and their time is expensive. How do you get a generic “my lawyer” on standby who can make an evil company say "oh shit she's not bluffing"
note: I have ADHD so I need a clearly identified first step
tangential to the main point: i have never seen it worded exactly like "I have ADHD so I need a clearly identified first step" and i feel like i should just boilerplate this onto everything i say
Laws differ from state to state, but I would say - in general - having a "my lawyer" is in retaining one. At least on the level of an entity such as a business or municipality, a retainer is paid in advance so they have the standby services of said lawyer/solicitor. They enter - usually an annual - agreement and advance payment for basic work up to a specified time period, and then a rate is paid for any time or services outside of this agreed-upon scope.
In my personal experience, you might get a nice lawyer that will provide you with a bit of free guidance and knowledge, but they will do very little (action-wise) without being on a retainer or arranging to bill you for services. And to be fair, a lot of them work under the top people who are partners in the firm, so if they do "too much pro bono," they'll eventually get an earful for it (or worse).
So I suppose the tl;dr version is, you typically need to pre-pay (usually in the four figures) a lawyer to have a "my lawyer" on standby. I'm not in law, but I've worked with enough people on a civic level to gather this much information. Anyone else with more direct experience can obviously chime in for you.
If you know and even slightly trust one lawyer, you can ask them for a referral to someone with the more correct specialty. Might take a train of several referrals before you get the one who actually knows the relevant stuff.
If you don't know a lawyer you can find a registry of lefty ones at https://www.nlg.org/referral-directory/
thanks! yeah I think this is what I'd need, and it's exactly the problem: I don't know any lawyers who would be that first step.
I previously had to stand up to BCBS denying my coverage, and it was because I had someone in a Slack server who knew the right things to say. I said those things and they caved. I'm not in that Slack anymore and I wouldn't know how to do that myself.
and like, I have previously called Equifax on the phone, which is already hard, and they just said "computer says no, you can lodge a complaint in writing", and of course I don't know how to fucking do that and writing a letter by snail mail is something I would never get around to anyway, so I just slinked away.
What I need is a way to not slink away next time
