This kind of question has come up a lot lately. This was not something that somebody would always ask me during the early years. When I served my articles at Legal Aid, whoever had any kind of legal problem approached me and already assumed that I was able to help. Later on, when I started working in private firms, I was also approached by clients who didn't bother to ask what kind of attorney I was; they just brought their problems to me and asked me to solve them.
A large part of these legal problems were court cases. Most of them were civil disputes. A rather large part of them were divorces. During my years as a candidate attorney with Legal Aid, I have done a lot of criminal work but, when I started charging for my services, criminal work was the one type of legal work that I have stopped receiving on a regular basis. Due to the fact that criminal clients are often people who just approached me for a bail application or for assistance with getting charged at a police station, I have begun to ask for sums of money like R8,000 upfront before I even engage in such work because a client like that often disappeared as soon the work was done and there was no way of recovering the money from him afterwards.
Wherever I worked, I did not have the luxury of saying that I do not do this or that type of work. I had to handle any file that was placed on my desk by my employer or somebody who spoke on behalf of my employer. It is also strange that, in my early years, whenever I was in a social setting or at family gatherings, people there did not bother to ask what type of attorney I was before they started telling me about their legal problems and asking for advice.
Transparent and Dedicated
Now that I have opened my office in Sonpark (the one where people often go to have their affidavits commissioned and their ID copies certified), people somehow seem to have become more cautious about approaching me for advice and assistance. When a stranger does begin speaking to me, he or she often ends up asking this very question of what type of attorney I am.
Well—apart from being the type of attorney who has learned to handle any type of problem that is brought to him, I can also mention that, in all of the private firms where I have worked, I have proven myself to be that type of attorney who often finds a way to move forward in a matter where other attorneys get stuck. In many of these firms, attorneys who could not see any way forward with a particular file, or who just did not enjoy the type of work that was given to them, would bring these files to me or even just place these files on my desk in my absence. Without fail, I would take over those files and move those matters to a finalization.
I can further say that I am the type of attorney that is transparent in his dealings, who is also known to report to his clients on a regular basis. This blog post is rather long and I deem it unlikely that I would give such a long answer in the next conversation in which this question ever comes up again. Nonetheless, you have read this blog post and no longer have to wonder.
