How to find a trusted substitute counsel in another city — 5 methods and their pitfalls

A scene familiar to every practitioner: Friday, 2.30 p.m., a hearing notice lands at the firm — Rzeszów, Tuesday 9.00 a.m. — and at 9.00 on Tuesday we are already standing before the Regional Court in Gdańsk. The frantic hunt for someone "on the ground" begins. Well, there are at least five ways to do it, and each comes at a price — not necessarily one measured in złoty.

Method 1 — contacts and referrals

A classic of the bar: a call to a fellow trainee who "knows someone over there." The upsides are obvious — transitive trust and zero formalities. The downsides surface over time: a network of contacts has gaps (in Rzeszów, as it happens, no one), the person referred is often busy, and settling up "between friends" sometimes ends in months of waiting for an invoice or in the awkwardness of chasing a report. A good method, but not a systemic one — it works until it doesn't.

Method 2 — Facebook groups

Groups such as "court substitutions" number tens of thousands of members and can find a provider within fifteen minutes. Still, we have to call things by their name:

• verification is practically non-existent — a profile picture with a robe in the background is no proof of admission to the roll;
• confidentiality is illusory — a post with a case reference number and the court's name is read by tens of thousands of people, potentially including the opposing party's counsel;
• arrangements get lost in comments and private messages — in a dispute over the fee, all that remains is a screenshot;
• settlement and documents — entirely outside any system, resting on the parties' good faith.

In my experience, most of the dramatic tales of failed substitutions begin with exactly the sentence "I found someone in a group."

Method 3 — mailing local law firms

The artisanal method: looking up law firms in the court's city and sending out enquiries. Effective, but time-consuming — a dozen or so emails, a few replies, negotiations with each one separately. For a one-off need it makes sense; with several substitutions a month it becomes a job of its own. What is more, the reply usually comes "tomorrow," and urgent instructions cannot wait.

Method 4 — registers and bar-association search tools

The National Register of Advocates and Trainee Advocates, along with the attorney-at-law search tool, lets you find a representative in any locality and verify their admission. It is an excellent tool for verification — but not for brokerage: the register will not tell you who has a free Tuesday morning, will not hand over the case file, and will not settle the fee. Cold-calling down a list from the register can be a lottery.

Method 5 — a specialised substitution platform

Finally, the systemic solution: a platform where the principal posts an instruction (court, date, scope, proposed rate), and only verified advocates and attorneys-at-law take it on. The advantage lies not in the "posting" itself — Facebook can do that too — but in the entire workflow around it:

• verification of providers before they are admitted to instructions, not after the damage is done;
• active searching — a good platform does not wait passively for someone to spot the post, but reaches out to providers itself through various channels;
• arrangements recorded in the system — scope, rate and payment date do not get lost in comments;
• documents and settlement in one place — the substitution power of attorney, the report, the invoice, the payment.

The drawback is the platform's commission — yet set against the hours of your own work involved in methods 1–4 and the risk of an unverified provider, the maths comes out clearly in its favour.

Comparison of methods — a table

Criterion

Contacts

Facebook

Mailing

Registers

Platform

Speed

medium

high

low

low

high

Provider verification

indirect

none

your own

full

full

Confidentiality

high

low

medium

high

high

Documents and settlement

outside any system

outside any system

outside any system

none

in the system

Scalability

low

medium

low

low

high

Summary

Each of the five methods can be effective — the question is how much its handling costs us and what risk we accept along with it. In my view the market is heading in one direction: away from chance postings and towards an organised workflow in which verification, arrangements and settlement are the standard rather than a bonus.

On Wokanda.net an instruction is posted in 3 minutes and goes exclusively to verified representatives — including those we actively reach out to ourselves, off the platform.

Post your first instruction →