Normally, a person desiring to hire a criminal defense lawyer has not planned the process out in advance.  The hiring of a criminal defense lawyer most often must be done on short notice by you, a friend or family member.  Great care should be taken in making that decision and selection.

          The best sources of information for hiring a criminal defense lawyer often come from recommendations of other lawyers that you may know who do not practice criminal law.  Members of the legal community generally know who are the most effective criminal defense lawyers and they can provide recommendations for the better criminal defense attorneys.

          Or you may know someone who has used a criminal defense lawyer previously and can ask that person if they were satisfied with the services provided by their lawyer.

          Another way to determine the best criminal defense lawyers is to refer to outside rating services.  Martindale-Hubbell is a company that rates lawyers based upon reviews from other members of the legal profession.  You may also refer to AVVO, which is another lawyer rating service, and their ratings of attorneys can be found on-line by searching by locale and specialties.  AVVO assigns attorneys numerical ratings based upon many different criteria.  There are other lawyer-rating services, such as SuperLawyers, which also can be searched on-line, which also rates and identifies the top 5% of lawyers by individual specialties.

          Once you have narrowed your search down to one or more possible attorneys, it is wise to both check out their website for further details and contact him or her by phone with preliminary questions about hiring that particular attorney.  One should not hesitate to ask important questions as to how the case will be defended, what the attorney fees will be, etc.

          The decision to hire a criminal defense attorney will be one of the more important decisions one makes in a lifetime, no matter what type or size of case it may be.  Like any other profession or occupation, there are outstanding criminal defense lawyers and then there is everyone else.  Your goal should be to hire the best and most effective attorney for your particular criminal case.