Facing the scrutiny of the police can be the scariest time of your entire life and for good reason. If convicted, you have your reputation, your future employability, your financial security and your freedom all put at risk.

Naturally, you want to give yourself the best possible chance of being acquitted of the charges or getting the minimum possible sentence. If you are facing charges in and around metropolitan New South Wales, then it’s likely you’ll want to engage one of the criminal law firms in Sydney.

However, legal agencies are as diverse in their quality and suitability for your case as any other consultancy service and you will need to ‘shop around’ to find the best option for you. Often, time is not on your side and you will need to make a final decision on who will represent you rather quickly.

The following will look at what you need to consider when choosing between the various criminal law firms in Sydney.

 

Consider their specializations

If you have been charged with an assault offence then it wouldn’t make much sense to engage criminal law firms in Sydney that deal primarily with traffic or drug related offences. While a lot of the skills required by a defence solicitor will overlap, you shouldn’t settle for anything less than professionals who deal with the issue you are facing.

Just looking on the agency’s website, you should be able to easily see their areas of specialization and which solicitors deal with them. Sometime one solicitor will cover multiple areas of practice but have one chief area they have most experience in.

 

Consider their track record

When comparing the criminal law firms in Sydney, it pays to look at the track record of success (or lack thereof) of each candidate. You obviously don’t want to engage an agency that has a history of achieving poor results or has poor reviews attached to it.

Sometimes it can be hard to judge how effective a candidate is just based off their website, so it may be prudent to look at reviews on independent directories and listings. If you know someone who used the agency in the past, ask them how their experience was and if the result they got was what they expected or what was predicted for them.

 

Consider their work style

When you are choosing between the criminal law firms in Sydney, make sure to get some insight into how they work with their clients. The last thing you want or need is an agency that fails to correspond with your frequently enough or fails to answer basic questions you ask them.

The way they process your bill is also particularly important as you don’t want to end up paying huge hourly fees when very little actual time is being spent on your case. You need to be clear about where your money is being spent so that you get the best value possible with your choice of agency.

 

Consider their solicitors

A criminal law firm in Sydney is only as good as the practitioners that work within it. Unless you are able to get along with the solicitor you are assigned and help them to sympathize with your situation then you are going to have less of a chance of getting an ideal outcome.

This is why it’s a good idea to organize an interview with some of the potential solicitors you could be working with so that you can get a quick feel for their personalities and individual work ethic. They should be eager to help you and enthusiastic about hearing about the details of your case.