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Which Counties Should a Virginia Attorney Handle in their Practice?
Every attorney will get a call from an old client or a potential client asking them to help them in a county that is out of the attorney’s geographic area. For example, if an attorney practices in Fairfax County, a client may request help in a pending case in Richmond. What is an attorney to do when an old faithful client asks for help in an unfamiliar court system that is hours away?
Expanding Your Practice to Additional Counties
Every Virginia attorney wants to grow their practice’s client base and revenues. One of the ways successful attorneys seek to do this to expand their presence into additional counties. If the law practice is working financially for the attorneys and working in terms of getting good results for the clients, it is understandable that the attorneys in the law practice will want to expand to additional counties. One of the best ways to expand to additional counties is through direct mail data for attorneys. It is possible to buy data on newly filed criminal and traffic charges from a court data provider like Direct Legal Mail. When you expand into a new county, you may not have the local connections in the community yet, and your website may not have enough content relating to the local court system to get a lot of new clients. But if you buy criminal and traffic data for attorneys from a company like Direct Legal Mail and use this data to mail to Virginia defendants, you can quickly and cost effectively bring in new clients in the new county or counties that you have expanded into.
Why an Attorney Should Practice in only Certain Counties
When you first started out as an attorney in Virginia, one of most important details you addressed was learning the local procedures of the courthouses in which you practiced. If you are a Criminal Defense Attorney in Prince William County Virginia, you learned that all motions are done on Friday at 9:00 a.m. and that all guilty pleas are done on Thursdays at 10:00 a.m. You also learned that in Prince William County court, you are expected to complete the Guilty Plea forms, whereas in Fairfax County court the prosecutor does the Guilty Plea forms for you. But what if you are asked by a former client to handle a case in a foreign jurisdiction?
Certainly, you can simply call an acquaintance that practices in that area or call the clerk’s office of that courthouse to discuss local procedures. Many times you can acquire enough information to still zealously represent your client. What you cannot likely get a handle on are the Judges of that jurisdiction. In addition, you will likely have to charge more for that client to cover your time, gas mileage and, possibly, multiple court appearances. For example, if your office is in Northern Virginia and you take a case in Richmond you will have to likely leave by 5:00 a.m. to get there in time. Additionally, if the case is continued for some reason, you will have to go back down there for a second time. Taking such a case also means you will have to keep your calendar open for those dates, and other cases you could have had at your local courthouse would either have to be continued or worse, given away to another attorney that is available to help your client in your home territory.
What To Do If You Have a Client That Needs Help In Another County
Many Virginia attorneys practice in multiple jurisdictions. For example, if you have an office in Richmond, you would likely have your main practice there. However, upon request, you would likely take cases in the neighboring counties, such as Henrico, Chesterfield, and Midlothian. This is normal and recommended because, many times, you can have more than one case a day at two different courthouses. On the other hand, taking a case in Stafford County would prove difficult to do with a Richmond office.
It is important to get to know other lawyers in Virginia. If, for example, your prior client’s child attends James Madison University in Blacksburg, Virginia and picks up a DUI charge, you may want to refer them to a good DUI lawyer you know out there to handle their child’s case. You would receive the bonus points from your client as an attorney that knows other attorneys in Virginia and you would not likely lose them if they later need help in your home jurisdiction. However, giving away new potential clients that have a case in your home jurisdiction because you have taken another case in a foreign jurisdiction can do more harm than good for both your practice and the client’s case result.
How Many Counties Should a Virginia Lawyer Take Cases In?
The answer to this question is it is up to the attorney. For example, in Northern Virginia, it is safe for an attorney to practice in one to three or even four counties because of the client population and close proximities of the county courthouses. Notwithstanding, many attorneys simply practice in one county because their practice is so 
lucrative in that one county in Northern Virginia. However, in Southwest Virginia, it is common to routinely practice in multiple jurisdictions because the population is less dense. As a result, attorneys may have a few pending cases in multiple counties but may have only one case per county per day. In Northern Virginia, however, it is common to have multiple cases in a single day in one county. It simply becomes too difficult to have more than one case in Arlington County, for example, and then need to travel that same day to Spotsylvania County for another client. In that instance, the attorney would do well to refer the Spotsylvania County case to a local attorney in that jurisdiction so that the client is represented by someone that knows the local court procedures and so the referring attorney isn’t trying to rush his cases to the disadvantage of his clients. Such a practice can be lucrative and much less stressful.