In this new pandemic video meeting; portal document upload world, the question of why use a local lawyer is something more clients and lawyers are asking. I am a lawyer practicing in Manotick, Ontario. I live in Manotick, Ontario. I am licensed to practice law in the Province of Ontario. I provide service mainly in my local area. This means that my clients are located in Manotick, Ontario and the surrounding area or the work I do for them relates to property, businesses or estates in Manotick, Ontario and the surrounding area.
There are lawyers and other providers of legal services who are not lawyers, offering services from locations far away from here. Some of them may and even do appear to have a presence here, but, do not. Some of them make it hard to determine whether they have a physical location near you or the place you need work done. Because of the pandemic, many service providers, including lawyers, have started to focus on a digital presence and interacting without being in the physical presence of those receiving the services. This has been helpful in many ways and has raised the question or why choose a local lawyer? You might be able to find someone who will do the work for less money if you shop the internet. Probably you can, but you will likely sacrifice service and accountability. You are less likely to connect with a lawyer with whom you build the kind of trusting relationship that makes you think of them and go back to them when legal needs arise following the transaction that caused you to hire a lawyer in the first place. That means when you need the help of a lawyer again, you are less likely to have someone in your corner you can call to help you or connect you with someone who can.
If you use a local lawyer, the lawyer will have connections like myself to the local community and can help connect you with someone who can help you with your mortgage, septic repairs, finding a painter, a mechanic, someone to open, close or repair your pool or people who can otherwise refer you to people who know who is and is not good to work with a reachable. A local lawyer can streamline simple to complex transactions. You can build a relationship with a local lawyer who can assist you throughout your life, even if as already mentioned, it is only to refer you to someone who can help you with a particular legal or other need he or she does not deal with.
The pandemic has increased social isolation for all of us. Connections to others with connections to places and people we know helps reduce that. The local lawyer offers that. Being able to interact with each other in person, or at least have the option of it is something the local lawyer is much more likely to be able to offer than someone in a City far away.