Hiring a Lawyer - Making the Most of your Initial Consultation

As always, before reading my post please review my disclaimer by clicking on the link above or by clicking on this link.  As always, any legal principles discussed apply only to the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Introduction

Let's say you have a legal crisis.  You have been arrested, you have been sued, you need to sue someone, you need a divorce - whatever it may be, you are in a bad place and need to turn to the legal system to help you.  After reviewing your options, you decide you need to have a lawyer.  How do you pick who will represent you?  Well, for most people, after doing research, talking to friends, looking online and so on, they will call a lawyer's office (or several, so they can compare) and set up an initial consultation.  In that initial consultation, they will seek to learn what the lawyer can do for them, and decide whether or not to actually hire that lawyer.

Many lawyers (my firm included) offer free initial consultations, but most do not.  That being said, most of the ones that do not offer free initial consultations still charge a discounted rate for the initial consultation.  Regardless of whether or not you are paying, however, the vast majority of initial consultations are limited to half an hour.  In this blog post, I will discuss what to do and what to look for so that you can use your half hour to convey to the lawyer the most information possible, get from the lawyer the most information possible, and help you make an informed decision about whether or not to hire that lawyer.

What you should bring to your consultation

In some ways, your consultation begins before you even leave home.  This is because you need to decide what to bring with you to the consultation.  While it is hard to make generalizations about what you should bring (each case usually has its own requirements), you should bring all relevant documents.  If you're being sued, for example, at a minimum you should bring the papers that were served on you.  If involved in a contract dispute, bring the contract.  Any documents relating to the case that have been given to you by the other side, any formal documents you have sent the other side, etc.

If you are uncertain, usually when you schedule your appointment you can ask the receptionist what to bring.  The receptionist will usually have a list, or be able to get one quickly from the lawyer you will be meeting with.  It is very important, however, that you bring these relevant documents.  I've had way too many consultations with people who wanted me to assess their liability under documents that I didn't have in front of me to review, and by the time they got them to me, they'd already used up their free consultation.

Introduction and Background - 3 minutes

To lead off your consultation, don't talk about the case itself too much.  Instead, let the lawyer know who you are.  What got you to where you are at today, what has been going on in the days, months, even years leading up to the legal situation you are in.  Why might this have happened?  What might have been done to avoid it?

This background information lets us get a firmer grasp on the case than if we just dove right in, and also opens up potential ideas for settlement right from the start.  For example, when I represent tenants, two tenants with the exact same problem might have very different needs - one who has been a happy tenant for years and this is the first problem to ever arise may just need the problem fixed, while one who has been miserable and this is the straw breaking the camel's back may be more in need of terminating the lease than getting the problem fixed.

Ultimately, you should aim for the introduction and background portion of your consult to be around 3 minutes long.  As you can tell, this leaves room for some detail, but not painstaking, extensive details.

Details of your situation - 7 minutes

The next seven minutes or so of your consult should be a discussion of exactly why you're there.  Tell the lawyer what situation you are in, what has transpired so far, what efforts (if any) you have made to resolve your situation, and give the lawyer the documents you brought to review.  Talk to the lawyer about what your position is on any allegations made, or what allegations you have to make.  This is, in many ways, the "meat" of your consultation - the part that lets the lawyer know what's really going on.  This is where we learn what kind of case we are truly facing.

Outline your goals - 3 minutes

Spend the next three minutes talking about what you want.  Provide the lawyer the "best-case scenario" - the outcome that gives you everything you want.  But also provide the lawyer your "minimum" scenario - what is the least you'd be ok with to resolve this matter.  Talk about what it is you really want to get out of your case.

Discussion with lawyer - 7 minutes

At this point, the lawyer should have all he needs to start presenting to you what he can do for you.  Give the lawyer this opportunity to outline to you his analysis of your case, your legal strengths and weaknesses, and the outline of his proposed strategy.  Feel free to interrupt with questions throughout this time period.

The "cost" discussion - 2 minutes

With 2/3 of your consultation now done, this is the point at which to direct the lawyer to discuss how much this is all going to cost you.  The lawyer should outline the fee, the basis for the fee, how much of a deposit you will be paying, etc.

Question and answer session - 8 minutes

The rest of your consultation should be spent with the lawyer answering any and all questions you have.  These questions should range from questions about your case itself to questions about how the lawyer will handle your case and how you will be billed.  This should give you the final pieces of information you need in order to make your decision.

Some questions to ask

So, having never spoken to a lawyer before, it's natural to not know what kinds of questions you should be asking that lawyer.  Here are some of the basic questions that I think everyone should be asking in an initial consultation:

• Will you be the lawyer representing me, or will it be someone else in the firm?
• How much of the work will be done by legal assistants/paralegals?
• (For hourly rate cases) What is the hourly rate for each attorney and legal assistant/paralegal in the office?
• What is the minimum time charge per task (or "to how many minutes is your work rounded when billing")?
• Is my fee deposit refundable?
• Is your billing rate negotiable?
• How many cases in this practice area have you handled before?
• How many cases like mine have you handled before?
• How quickly do you typically respond to phone calls and e-mails?
• How many active cases are you handling right now?
• If you were in my shoes, and you couldn't hire yourself or your firm, what attorney/firm would you hire to represent you?
• What do you do to stay on top of changes in the law?
• From what you know of my case so far, what is my worst case scenario?
• If you were representing the other side, how would you argue their case?

Look for specific answers to these questions.  A lawyer who is being evasive may be hiding something from you ("it's hard to predict" or "it depends" are perfectly reasonable answers, but shifting subjects, downplaying your question, etc. is not).  If another lawyer will be handling most of your case, ask some of the above questions about that lawyer.

Be skeptical if the lawyer gives a large number or says "a lot" to the "how many cases like mine have you handled" question - every case is unique, and a lawyer should make clear that he understands that he probably hasn't handled a case just like yours before.  A lawyer unable to point to other lawyers who are good is one you should also be wary of - chances are this means the lawyer has been over-emphasizing self-promotion throughout your consultation.  Similarly, be wary of a lawyer who cannot put together a reasonably strong argument in support of the other side - he is much more likely to be blind-sided while preparing your case.

Conclusion

Hiring a lawyer can be a very scary prospect for those going through the legal system for the first time.  Much of the purpose of an initial consultation is to help guide you through that process so you can be comfortable with your choice.  If you are in a legal crisis in a practice area we handle (family law, landlord/tenant law, contract disputes, appellate litigation, etc.), please feel free to call (703)281-0134 or e-mail me at SLeven@thebaldwinlawfirm.com to set up your initial consultation.  Initial consultations at our office are free for up to half an hour!

Getting More for Less - Some Good Reasons to Hire a Small Law Firm

As always, please review my disclaimer before reading this post by clicking on the link above or by clicking on this link. As always, any legal principles discussed apply only to the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Introduction

In looking over my old blog posts today, it occurred to me that I have spent a great deal of time now discussing the law and the details of practicing law.  It has been months, possibly even years, since I last talked about relationships between attorneys and clients.  Today I want to change that.

I have never hidden the fact that I am not one of these fancy, wealthy, big law, big city, workaholic attorneys.  I work for a small law firm, generally handle my cases entirely on my own, work five days a week, and get home in time for dinner with my family almost every night.  The experiences of a small law attorney is very different than the attorneys portrayed on TV.  Our clients frequently are different, too.  Our clients are generally reliably middle class - too poor to afford the fancy downtown law firms, not nearly poor enough to qualify for pro bono assistance.  Given the size of the various "classes" in America, then, it should be no surprise that, in actuality, the vast majority of attorneys work for small law firms, and the vast majority of people who retain attorneys, retain attorneys from small law firms.

Nonetheless, that snapshot of our client base is not complete.  We do, on occasion, get the Fortune 500 executive, large business owner, or wealthy inheritor in our doors, even though they could afford those downtown attorneys.  On one occasion, I asked one of our wealthier clients why he chose to "go small."  His answer ("I want an attorney who's actually been in front of a judge before") made me realize something I hadn't thought about before - even when you have the option, financially, to retain a large law firm, there are actually many reasons to still go with a small law firm.

In today's blog post, I will discuss some of the reasons that I, personally, feel like "going small" is frequently the right choice.

Some basic background

To lead off, I want to be clear that there are many situations where, if you can afford representation from a big law firm, that is probably the direction to go.  Multi-million dollar mergers and acquisitions, extremely complicated lawsuits with millions of pages of documents, and other high-end business representation is typically best served by big law firms.  By and large, this blog post will be talking about personal litigation.  As in cases where you, yourself (not your business) are the party involved.  While some of this can apply to business litigation and other business work as well, by and large, I am referring to personal matters in this post.

"Going small" supports your community

This might be an odd point, but it's worth considering.  There has been a growing appreciation over the last decade or so for "small businesses."  This is a well-placed appreciation.  Small businesses keep money local, help our local community (by hiring people) and help our local economy (by spending money within the community).

It may be odd to think of us this way, but small law firms are small businesses.  A small law firm rarely has more than one office, all of its money tends to be spent locally, and all of its employees (including the lawyers) live locally and spend locally.  Just as with any other small business, when you retain a small law firm you are supporting your local community and local economy in a way that you simply don't when you hire a large law firm.

You get more varied experience for less money

In small law, since we generally do not have wealthy clients, we have to rely on having a large volume of cases to keep our lights on.  The result is that we tend to see a much wider variety of cases than your typical big law firm does, meaning that we could very well be more prepared for the issues to arise in your case than a big law attorney would be.  All of that, even though we cost less than our big law counterparts.

You get more practical experience for less money

I have been practicing law for more than four years now.  In that time, I have appeared in court hundreds of times, argued contested hearings scores of times, and handled numerous contested trials (even multi-day trials), all by myself.  My classmates from law school who are in large law firms by and large haven't even seen the inside of a courtroom yet - and they're the ones in their firm's "litigation" practice - but their billing rate is substantially higher than mine.  You can pay less money by hiring a small law attorney with the same number of years of experience, and substantially more practical courtroom experience, or you can spend a similar amount of money to hire a small law attorney with many more years of experience, and incalculably more courtroom experience.

We get to know you and your whole case

I spent the summer after my second year of law school in a large law firm.  You've probably heard of the "gilded" summer associateships at big law firms - the ones with the obscenely expensive events, obscenely high pay, ridiculously garish parties, etc.  Well, I had one of those.  It was an amazing summer, an experience I will truly never forget, and one that I cherish to this day for a lot of reasons.  What I will also never forget, however, is how we handled clients.  Clients weren't really clients, they were numbers.  I would enter into a database the "client number" for all client work I had done that day, and I would know basically nothing about the case except for the particular issue I was working on.

In small law, I know the client, I know the case, and I know every issue in the case.  If you want to know what's going on in your case, you can call me and get an answer from me, not some junior associate who's only worked on one element of your case.  That's the kind of personal relationship you rarely get with an attorney in big law.

Conclusion

The reality is, even when you have a choice, there are lots of reasons to choose to hire a small law attorney over a big law attorney.  This blog post has summarized some of them, but there are more.  If you are searching for an attorney and have a choice, I hope you "go small."  If you want to learn more about what we can offer, call (703)281-0134 or e-mail me at SLeven@thebaldwinlawfirm.com to set up an initial consultation.  Our initial consultations are free for up to half an hour (something else you generally won't get with big law)!

If I Get Divorced Am I Getting Deported? A Guest Post on the Intersection of Family and Immigration Law

As always, before reading this post, please review my disclaimer by clicking on the link above, or by clicking on this link.  The statements made in this blog post are those of the posts author.  The owner of this blog does not endorse the content of the post, as it relates to fields of practice that the owner of the blog does not practice and cannot independently vouch for the accuracy of.  Any opinions expressed in the post are solely those of the post's author.

Introduction

Today's blog post is a guest post by James Montana, a DC-based immigration attorney who practices law with the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington and also conducts his own private practice.  He has agreed to write this post about a topic which I believe I, and most other family law attorneys (especially in the DC area), really need to know more about - specifically the impact of a divorce on the immigration status of a spouse who came to the United States on a spouse or fiancée visa.  Mr. Montana can be reached by e-mail at MontanaLawPLLC@gmail.com or by phone at (888)389-8655.  I have known Mr. Montana for more than 15 years, and certainly feel like he is the kind of person you would want to have fighting for you.

The Problem:  Complex Immigration Laws for Vulnerable People

American immigration law is complex. How complex? As a panel of federal appellate judge once put it, “[w]e have had occasion to note the striking resemblance between some of the laws we are called upon to interpret and King Minos's labyrinth in ancient Crete. The Tax Laws and the Immigration and Nationality Acts are examples we have cited of Congress's ingenuity in passing statutes certain to accelerate the aging process of judges. In this instance, Congress, pursuant to its virtually unfettered power to exclude or deport natives of other countries, and apparently confident of the aphorism that human skill, properly applied, can resolve any enigma that human inventiveness can create, has enacted a baffling skein of provisions for the I.N.S. and courts to disentangle.” Lok v. INS, 548 F. 2d 37 (1977).

If you are an immigrant to the United States, you face the same “baffling skein” that confronts our federal judges when you interact with our immigration system, but without our judges’ training and linguistic advantages. You may not be familiar with the American legal system and you may not be a native speaker of English. Keep those complexities and your own potential vulnerabilities in mind as you read this and other written commentary about our immigration system. You are always best-served in these matters by a private consultation with a qualified attorney.

In this entry, I will discuss the effect of divorce on noncitizen immigrants. Family-based immigration is the most common way that non-citizens become lawful permanent residents of the United States, and spousal petitions are one of the most important avenues within immigration law. Marriages do not always work out well, though, and families of mixed origin are not immune to the tragedy of divorce. In addition to the usual considerations in family court, which you would do well to discuss with a family lawyer, non-citizens should consider carefully the potential immigration consequences of divorce. To repeat, you should seek a separate consultation with an immigration lawyer, but, as a general guide, here are a few questions to think about before you seek a divorce.

Are you being abused by your U.S. citizen spouse, or were you abused by your U.S. citizen spouse in the past?

See to your safety first and the safety of any children in the family. Your immigration worries can wait. Call the National Domestic Violence hotline at (800) 799-SAFE, or, if you live in Washington, call House of Ruth at (202)667-7001.

Once you are in a safe and stable place, and you are ready to think about potential avenues forward, consult with an immigration attorney. The Violence Against Women Act offers avenues for relief, including employment authorization and relief from removal, which may help you to get back on your feet and become a lawful permanent resident of the United States. If you are an abused man, the Violence Against Women Act can help you, too; I have been involved in several cases in which abused men sought help and successfully obtained lawful permanent residency through this Act.

Are you on a K-1 visa?

A U.S. citizen may petition for an alien fiancé(e) through the use of Form I-129F. If admitted, the alien fiancé(e) must marry the citizen petitioner within ninety days of admission into the United States, and then the alien must apply for adjustment of status to permanent residency. Otherwise,the alien’s nonimmigrant K-1 visa will terminate, and then the alien will be without lawful immigration status.

If you arrive on a K-1 visa and discover that your fiancé(e) may not be the right person for you to marry, think very carefully about what to do next. The first and best option, from the perspective of the immigration laws, is to seek counseling, work out your differences, and marry as planned. If that is impossible, consider the immigration consequences of not marrying within the terms of your K-1 visa: You will not be able to adjust status to permanent residency, even upon a subsequent marriage to another U.S. citizen; you will not be able to receive employment authorization; you will become deportable from the United States once your K-1 status expires.

Is your adjustment of status application pending?

If you filed an adjustment of status application based on your marriage to a U.S. citizen spouse, and you are now thinking about a divorce, think very carefully indeed. Under most circumstances, divorce will end your spouse’s ability to petition for you, and your adjustment of status application will be denied. You may then be referred to immigration court, where an immigration judge will determine whether you are removed from the United States.

Are you a conditional lawful permanent resident?

If you already have a green card, you may feel safe in applying for a divorce. The degree of safety depends on whether you are a conditional lawful permanent resident or not. You can tell whether you are a conditional lawful permanent resident by looking at your green card approval notice on Form I-797C. You can also take a look at your green card itself; if it is marked CATEGORY: CR1, you are a conditional lawful permanent resident.

If you are a conditional lawful permanent resident, you are obliged to file Form I-751 in the ninety day period before the two-year anniversary of your green card approval date. If Form I-751 is approved, your green card status will become truly permanent. Divorce does not terminate this obligation, and you may apply to lift the conditions of your green card status even if you have divorced your U.S. citizen petitioner. Doing so will require showing (1) that you are divorced, and (2) that you got married in good faith, which can be difficult without the cooperation of your ex-spouse. Tread carefully and seek appropriate legal counsel.

What might your spouse or ex-spouse say to the government if the government called to ask about the marriage?

No matter where you are in the immigration system, divorce can lead to painful questions by the government. Those questions do not always occur in your presence in the interview room; indeed, the government has the right to call your spouse (or ex-spouse) and will do so if the government suspects fraud. Angry people sometimes lash out against an ex-spouse by telling the government that the marriage was fraudulent from the beginning. It is worth discussing, in advance, with your spouse or ex-spouse, what to do if the government calls.

I am satisfied that my immigration status is safe. Can I get a divorce?

Yes, you can. You can get a divorce even if you are not a citizen of the United States. You have access to the U.S. legal system as a non-citizen, and you should not fear arrest by the Department of Homeland Security simply for availing yourself of your access to the U.S. civil court system.

What if I was married in my home country. Can I get a divorce here?

Yes, you can. Talk to a family lawyer about the appropriate procedure in your home state, but know that the U.S. immigration authorities will recognize the validity of a U.S. divorce for the purpose of ending a foreign marriage. Your home country’s laws may differ. Naturally I cannot speak to those.

Conclusion

Divorce is a complex area of law, and it can be even more treacherous for immigrants to the United States. If you need an immigration consultation, please feel free to email me at MontanaLawPLLC@gmail.com or call me at (888)389-8655. If you need a family law consultation, set up a consultation with Samuel Leven, or his firm, by calling (703)281-0134 or e-mailing him at SLeven@thebaldwinlawfirm.com. His firm’s initial consultations are free for up to half an hour!

Virginia Circuit Court - Trying Civil Cases in Circuit Court

As always, before reading this post, please read my disclaimer by following the link above or by clicking on this link.  As always, any legal principles discussed apply only to the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Introduction

Three weeks ago, I began a four part series covering the basics of trying civil cases in each of Virginia's three trial courts.  In that post, I provided a basic introduction to the three courts and a basic breakdown of what kinds of cases they hear.  Two weeks ago, I covered trying cases in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court.  Last week, I covered trying cases in the General District Court.  Today, in the final installment of the series, I will cover handling civil cases in the Circuit Court.

Differences from County to County

Like J&DR and GDC, Circuit Court procedures vary from county to county.  In my experience, however, amongst the three courts, Circuit Court is the court in which the procedures vary the least from county to county.  So while I will again be focusing on Fairfax County's procedures, you can be fairly confident that most counties in Virginia will be the same or very similar.

Typical Case

Again like J&DR and GDC, different kinds of Circuit Court civil cases have different kinds of procedures.  As a result, this post will talk about a "typical" case for the most part, and then have a section at the end discussing some "atypical" cases.  It is worth noting, however, that the vast majority of cases that the Circuit Court hears tend to fit in the "typical" case category.

In Circuit Court, I would consider a "typical case" to be a regular lawsuit for money, a divorce case, a case seeking declaratory judgment, and similar cases.

Step 1:  File your Complaint

Cases in Circuit Court are generally initiated by a "Complaint."  The Complaint lays out the facts that you allege entitle you to judgment, along with what judgment you are seeking.  Before 2006, when our courts of law and courts of equity were merged, a law case was initiated with a "Motion for Judgment" while an equity case was initiated with a "Bill of Complaint," but after the merger, both of those types of filings got combined into a new filing type simply called a "Complaint."  That being said, attorneys who have been practicing for decades can have trouble adjusting, even now, so you may occasionally still see a "Motion for Judgment" or "Bill of Complaint" come up - just know there's no functional difference today between those and a "Complaint."

Now filing a Complaint is trickier than filing a Warrant in GDC or a petition in J&DR.  This is because a Complaint is free-form, so there is no "form" to just fill out like in GDC, and Circuit Courts do not (for a wide variety of reasons) have public intake offices with intake officers authorized to take your issues and type them up like in J&DR.  This means you are going to be largely on your own in terms of crafting your Complaint, and failing to include something you needed to can be fatal to your case (see my post on cases dismissed on technicalities for more on that).  As a result, while it's generally a bad idea, in my opinion at least, to file cases in GDC or J&DR without a lawyer, it's generally an even worse idea to file a case without a lawyer in Circuit Court.

Anyways, once you complete your Complaint, you bring it, along with your filing fee and service of process fee (assuming you want the sheriff to serve the Complaint), to the Circuit Court in which you are filing and file your Complaint.  Your case is now open.

Step 2:  Await an Answer

After you have filed your Complaint and it has been served on the defendant, the defendant has 21 days to file an "Answer."  If the defendant was served personally, or if he was served by "substituted" service (service made on a family member who is 16 and older and lives in the same house as the defendant), the defendant is in default if he does not file an answer after 21 days.  If the defendant was served by posted service (Complaint was posted on front door of defendant's home), you must also mail a copy of the complaint to the defendant, along with notice that the suit is pending, and that the defendant must file an Answer within 21 days of service or within 10 days of receiving your letter, whichever deadline is later.  If 21 days after service and 10 days after mailing (the mailing can be done before the 21 days are up) have passed and there is no Answer filed, the defendant again is in default.

If the defendant is in default, you can proceed to obtain a default judgment (except in divorce cases) - but the process for doing this in Circuit Court varies too widely from case type to case type for me to really get into here.

If the defendant does file an Answer, then we have a live case.

Step 3:  Term Day or Scheduling Conference

Now, in terms of actually setting a trial date, the counties do vary widely.  Most counties use a process called "Term Day."  This is one day every month where attorneys with civil cases pending can come to court and schedule their cases for trial.  In most counties, the parties to the case choose when they go to Term Day - but this does not have to be by agreement.  One party will decide it is time, and file a Notice with the court, copy sent to the other party, setting the case for the next Term Day.  In some counties, however, the court will automatically schedule your case for Term Day.

Other counties, including Fairfax, use an entirely different procedure.  In these counties, once an Answer is filed, a "scheduling conference" is set.  This is a date that can be pretty much any time during any month where you appear before the court clerks to set your trial date.  You only appear before a judge if there is a dispute about the trial date.

Regardless of the procedures your county uses, the purpose is the same - this is where you will set the date of trial, and the estimated duration of trial.

Step 4:  Prepare for Trial

Note that step 4 can be done before step 3, after step 3, or both.

Preparing for trial in the Circuit Court is much like the other courts, except you automatically have discovery available, and you can conduct depositions.  During this time you will typically engage in discovery, potentially retain expert witnesses, interview and prepare witnesses, and otherwise prepare for your trial.

Step 5:  Trial

A trial in the Circuit Court is much like in the other courts, except that, if the case is eligible and either the plaintiff requested it in his Complaint or the defendant requested it in his Answer, your case can be heard by a jury.  All of the usual rules of evidence and procedure apply, and at the end the judge or the jury will rule.  Frequently an order will not be entered that day, but rather a hearing date will be set in the near term future so that the attorneys can write up the order to be entered and submit it on that hearing day to be entered.  It is not uncommon, however, in the case of a simple lawsuit for money for the judgment order to be entered the same day.

Step 6:  Post-Trial

As the Circuit Court is the highest trial court, there is no appeal of right to another court for a brand new trial - the Circuit Court must have done something wrong for you to get a new trial.  In order to file an appeal, you must file your notice of appeal within 30 days of entry of the final judgment or order, along with the appellate filing fee.  Your appeal bond, if you have one, will be due at the time your appeal is perfected.  This means that, in the case of an "appeal of right," your appeal bond is due at the same time as your notice of appeal.  For an "appeal by petition," you only owe an appeal bond if and when your petition is granted.  For more on the appellate litigation process in Virginia, you can review my post on the topic.

Some "atypical" cases

As I mentioned above, not all cases follow the above-listed process.  Below I've summarized some important to know cases that do not follow these exact procedures:

• Appeals from J&DR and GDC:  As I've mentioned before, almost any judgment in the J&DR Court or General District Court can be appealed to the Circuit Court for a whole new trial.  Those appeals do not follow the exact procedures outlined above, however.  Instead, in most counties, the appeals are automatically set for a Term Day.  Once that Term Day is done, however, the same procedures as above apply.  Note that some courts, including Fairfax County's, actually just sets a trial date for General District Court appeals, but they will usually be more open to continuing that date if necessary than the court would be for other types of continuances.

Honestly, that's the only type of common case that is "atypical" that I can think of - as I mentioned before, most cases in the Circuit Court are "typical."

Conclusion

The Circuit Court, as the court of "general jurisdiction" hears probably the largest number and range of civil cases of the three trial courts Virginia has.  Practice there can be perilous for those who do not know its rules and procedures well.  If you have a case coming up or that you would like to file in the Circuit Court, please feel free to call (703)281-0134 or e-mail me at SLeven@thebaldwinlawfirm.com to set up a consultation.  Our initial consultations are free for up to half an hour!