My friend says her younger brother swindled her out of her inheritance from their mother, by having her will changed AFTER mom was diagnosed with dementia. She has proof of the dates involved. She had hired one attorney, who it turns out was friends with her brother's attorney. Brother's attorney resigned from the case when he found he would probably have to testify in the case. Now my friend's attorney has resigned as well and returned all the money she paid him. His excuse is that he is without a paralegal to do the legwork required. At any rated, she needs a new attorney. My friend lives in California, so it would be helpful to get a recommendation from someone who knows and trusts a Florida lawyer. Please feel free to send me a private message if it's not allowed to post names on here. Thanks in advance!
There used and may still be lists of highly recommended attorneys by practice area. I don't recall if this was an ABA list or state bar association list, or another legal entity which compiled the lists.
Law firms typically also list their attorneys who have achieved prominence and are highly rated by other attorneys.
Findlaw also has various lists of attorneys by practice and geographic area.
On the general issue of finding someone, this to me is a clue that this is not a case an attorney would really want to handle:
"Now my friend's attorney has resigned as well and returned all the money she paid him. His excuse is that he is without a paralegal to do the legwork required."
In all my decades of employment in law firms, I've never once heard of an attorney who declined a case b/c of lack of a paralegal. The firms just pay the paralegals on staff overtime if it's necessary, and charge the client for OT, or in the case of the last paralegal position I held, the paralegal just works overtime and the extra hours go toward meeting monthly hourly quotas for billed time. (Other than PI or MedMal practice areas, most paralegals have to meet monthly hourly quotas just as attorneys do.)
The company I had worked for found bad reviews from people who were never our clients.
I found my Elder Law Attorney by going up to the blue/green bar at the top of this page. Click on CARE TOPICS. Now go to ELDER LAW. Once on that page, scroll down a bit and you will see an area where one puts in their city name, etc. You should get a list of Elder Law Attorneys.