David Craig has a lengthy career as an attorney, specializing in complex issues pertaining to large commercial vehicles. Co-written with Abigail Hays, IT’S NEVER BEEN EASIER TO HIRE THE WRONG ATTORNEY abstracts that experience to help readers understand the obstacles to finding appropriate legal representation for any type of circumstances.
Although this may seem like a quibbling matter discussed by a technical specialist, IT’S NEVER BEEN EASIER TO HIRE THE WRONG ATTORNEY has surprisingly broad interest and appeal. That’s because, in establishing the best practices for finding an attorney in the 2020s, the text must provide the reader with some basic information literacy skills which are applicable to any situation. At times, the text can feel overly pointillist—we don’t really need to know how much money, or what percentage of a law firm’s budget, is spent on different types of marketing each year—and at others, it can err on the side of repetition. But at its core, this book carefully helps readers understand how different types of advertisements should be navigated and contextualized.
The text synthesizes its argument: “You are not looking for the best marketer. You are looking for the best attorney.” This is equally true for any other type of product or service, and IT’S NEVER BEEN EASIER TO HIRE THE WRONG ATTORNEY is commendable for taking a reader through multiple types of marketing and explaining how, and why, to use them. To some readers, explaining things like the difference between promoted and organic Google search results may seem stultifyingly basic; but information professionals like public librarians know that these types of information literacy are often lacking and need to be trained. Anyone trying to sort through the chaos of ads with which they are bombarded daily will benefit from the text’s plain language and clear argumentative structure.
In its back half, IT’S NEVER BEEN EASIER TO HIRE THE WRONG ATTORNEY gets more specific about finding legal professionals. These chapters, including lists of references like accrediting organizations for attorneys, are more specific in content. But the underlying attitudes and skills—to seek out trustworthy resources and expert testimony to judge a good or service—are still legible, and can still be broadly applied. It’s clear by the turn of the final page: anyone who sees ads regularly, or struggles to decide how to make a purchase, can and should read this book.
Well-organized and to-the-point, David W. Craig and Abigail Hays’s IT’S NEVER BEEN EASIER TO HIRE THE WRONG ATTORNEY presents both valuable reference material and a primer in informational literacy for the digital age.
~Dan Accardi for IndieReader