The first appointment sets the tone for everything that follows, and it is also the one hour you are least prepared for, because the death is recent and the paperwork is scattered across a filing cabinet, a safe deposit box, and somebody's email. You can fix most of that in a weekend. What you cannot fix afterward is a bad match: an attorney whose practice is really real estate, who handles two probates a year, and who will learn the local judge's preferences on your dime. Choosing well is mostly a matter of checking things other people skip.
1. Start with the county bar referral service, then verify
Most county bar associations run a referral line that screens for practice area and, in some counties, for years of experience in that area. It is a filter, not an endorsement, and it will hand you two or three names rather than one. Take those names to the state bar's licensing lookup and check standing, admission date, and any public discipline. That takes ten minutes and answers a question you cannot ask politely in a meeting. Referral services often set a nominal fee for an initial consultation, which is worth confirming before you book.
2. Read the court clerk's list of recent filings
Every probate matter in the county leaves a paper trail in the clerk's office, and in most counties the docket is searchable online or at a public terminal in the courthouse. Pull up estates filed in the last year and note which firms appear repeatedly. Those are the attorneys who know which forms the clerk rejects, how long a hearing date takes to get, and what the judge wants in a petition for final distribution. If you can, look at one closed file end to end and see how long it ran.
3. Consider an estate-planning attorney who did not draft the will
The lawyer who wrote the will knows the family and the documents, which is convenient, and that same lawyer may be a witness if anyone contests capacity or undue influence. A different attorney from the same field brings the drafting knowledge without the entanglement, and will read the instrument as a stranger would, which is exactly how the court will read it. If there is any friction among beneficiaries, that separation is worth the loss of continuity. If there is none, the drafting attorney may still be the efficient choice.
4. Ask who actually does the work, and at what rate
Much of probate is production: inventory schedules, notices to creditors, proof of mailing, accountings. A well-run office pushes that to a paralegal, and that is good news, because the paralegal rate is a fraction of the attorney rate and the paralegal often knows the clerk by name. Ask what share of a typical estate the paralegal handles, whether you can contact that person directly, whether paralegal time is billed separately or folded into a statutory fee, and who appears at hearings. Ask what tasks the office expects you to do yourself.
Ask two more things. What is the flat, hourly, or percentage structure in your state, and what falls outside it as an extraordinary fee: selling real property, defending a contest, running a business. And what does the attorney estimate for filing fees, publication, appraisal, and bond, which are costs of the estate rather than fees of the firm. An attorney who answers those precisely, without hedging, has done this often enough to predict it.
5. Bring the documents that keep hour one from being hour three
Take certified copies of the death certificate, several of them, since banks and title companies keep them. Take the original will and any codicil, plus trust documents if one exists. Take the last two years of federal returns, since the estate will need a final Form 1040 and possibly its own return, and the Internal Revenue Service is the authority on which filings an estate owes and on the employer identification number the estate will need. Take recent statements for every bank, brokerage, and retirement account, along with the deed, the property tax bill, and the homeowners insurance policy.
Then take the list of people. Names, addresses, and phone numbers for every beneficiary and every heir at law, including the ones nobody has spoken to in years, because notice goes to all of them. Add known debts: mortgage servicer, credit cards, medical bills, and any lawsuit or claim you are aware of. Write down what you do not have and where you think it might be.
A careful reader checks standing, checks the docket, checks who bills what, and shows up with a box that has already been sorted. That is the whole method, and it holds up.