Find a Lawyer in Portugal the Right Way: No, You Can't Just Google It

I'm a Canadian citizen and I moved to Portugal with my husband back in 2018. We had been living in Canada, moved to the UK for two years, and decided it was as good a time as any to try living in a country that had always been on our list of potentially good fits - although we never really thought we'd end up staying in Portugal for good.

The more time goes on, the more I cannot imagine myself living anywhere else. But if I'm honest, our first months here I was second guessing absolutely everything about the move we made to Portugal. From buying our home - which we loved - to whether or not I could feel safe living in this country considering the horrible experience we had.

Luckily, those first few months brought us blessings - in the form of kind neighbours and acquaintances we made that became great friends - that snowballed over time to give us not only the feeling of security I was so lacking initially, but a feeling of security I've never before and likely will never again experience if I move away from Portugal.

We've gotten roots down here, and those roots mean I in no way regret our decision to try out Portugal, or move to this country, though to this day, I regret the one biggest mistake we made before we set foot in Portugal: choosing the absolute wrong law firm - and how that one horrible decision (which we did our best to prevent beforehand!), created such enormous problems in our lives that took us ages to unravel and recover from.

Since our move here, we've had a number of friends and family members decide to make the move to Portugal, and luckily never has our horror experience been repeated again. But that's because we were there to help them avoid the pitfalls we fell head first into ourselves.

If you've read any of my previous articles, you might know that one massive pitfall we fell into was choosing to use our law firm to buy property in Portugal. I've spoken about it in my article on pitfalls foreigners often fall into when buying real estate in Portugal, for example.

I've never done it again, will never do it again, and will never let anyone I know who is making the move to Portugal do it. Just this one simple tip will help you dodge countless bullets - and is likely to help you avoid some of the most awful real estate scams that exist in Portugal, ones that are sadly more common than most would think.

Find a real estate agent - a good one - to handle buying your property. And for heaven's sake - make absolute sure your immigration lawyer, or any other lawyer you're after getting to sort out your affairs in Portugal - has been used by someone and vouched for by them. Because no, you cannot simply Google this kind of thing.

Let me explain. Lawyers everywhere can be problematic, slow, difficult to work with, hard to reach, hard to communicate with - that's not what's at issue here.

What Can Happen If You Don't Find the Right Lawyer in Portgual

What's at issue is that working with the wrong lawyer in Portugal may result in you:

1. Not getting the services you paid for,
2. Not getting your paperwork done on time,
3. Getting mixed up in a very, very bad real estate scam,
4. Not knowing where you even stand with regards to your paperwork and legality,
5. All while being tied into a contract that you legally signed with that lawfirm, making undoing the damage costly and (for me) pretty frightening.

I didn't personally fall into all these issues - thank heavens - but even with a ridiculous amount of due diligence, research, and forethought, my husband and I ended up in a nightmare situation that only resulted from having worked with the wrong law firm.

Now for why the obvious way of finding a good lawyer is the absolute wrong way to go about finding a lawyer in Portugal.

Why Finding a Lawyer Through Google Search Results & Even Using a Law Firm That Advertises In Other Countries Is an Awful Idea

Sadly, the way things work in Portugal with regards to services like law firms, real estate agents, construction firms, and so much more is as such:

Those who are good at their job do not need to advertise.

They already have clients, many clients, and through word of mouth and those clients telling other clients about their positive experiences, they have so many customers that they do not need to advertise.

They do not pay for SEO companies to advertise their law firms online. They do not send representatives to other countries to reel new customers in at the source. No. They just do their job, do it well, and they have repeat customers and new customers because word of mouth gets around, and they focus on their work.

Great in concept - really good for the customer because it means they get quality work done. Awful if you're a foreigner and don't know anyone who can tell you about these incredible people.

So what exactly can you do to prevent falling into the hands of the wrong lawyers and having a nightmare situation like we did?

Make sure you are given a testimony - and know someone who has had firsthand experience working with that law firm - to make sure you do not end up working with the wrong one.

Easier said than done? Yes, most likely. But it's something you absolutely should do. So here are some ways that might help you do it.

How to Find a Lawyer in Portugal the Right Way

1. Ask friends and family in Portugal for recommendations.

If you have them - ask your friends and family in Portugal for recommendations. Honestly please do.

Don't have friends or family in Portugal? Don't know anyone in Portugal? It's time to use your own personal network...

2. Ask if your friends or family know anyone living in Portugal you can talk to.

Yes, sometimes you can find people this way. I have literally no family linage that traces back to Portugal, but I'm sure if I asked friends and family which extended family members lived in Brazil I could contact, and those friends and family members reached out to their networks, somewhere along the line I would have manged to find a contact that knew of someone here who I could get a recommendation from.

Not. Easy. Not at all. But it's something. And if I didn't want to go down that route..

3. Ask expat groups, online forums like Reddit, or locals when you travel to Portugal for personal recommendations.

There are plenty of Portuguese expat groups online - on Facebook, some with their own recommendations. Reddit even has a subreddit called "Portugal Expats" that you can ask people for recommendations from.

You can even ask literal locals if/when you come visit Portugal if you're travelling here for recommendations, and gather lists of referrals that way.

Is it easy? Heck no. And you should 100% treat these referrals with a grain of salt.

And always, always, always be sure to ask whomever referred you if they have used this lawyer/law firm themselves - because it's not enough to have "heard" someone was good, they don't know if they haven't used them.

But is it necessary to know someone has firsthand experience that a law firm or lawyer is good? Yes. Because I mean it when I say, here, that's the only way you'll find out for sure whether you're working with is actually good.

Now, I know - this is a mega pain. It's not easy to do. It's not simple, straightfoward, and you have to use people's opinions and even experiences with a grain of salt (especially if you of course do not know them personally). But it will help you dodge very, very painful bullets. And in all my time spent in Portugal, this is the only way I have found to actually manage to not end up in a very, very bad circumstance, where you're working with someone who is absolutely terrible.

No, paying more will not necessarily get you better service. No, paying a company you assume spends heaps and bounds on marketing will not get you good service. It's just not true here.

Yes, knowing someone who has had a good experience working with that particular lawyer or law firm will get you a similar result. Yes, to my knowledge, this is the only way to avoid so much of the agony I personally went through.

Now, if you for any reason want the opinion of this particular internet stranger - triggered as she may be from having had terrible experiences with bad law firms and lawyers in Portugal in the past - to help you avoid the headache she went through, I'm going to tell you straight up, I'd be happy to help because of my awful experience.

I am so glad that my brother's move to Portugal from Canada was nothing like ours. I'm so glad the friends and family we helped move to Portugal, who we are so happy to have here, never lived a day of the nightmare we did. And I'm very happy to help if you have questions of your own or need help finding people - I just don't want other expats to be in the same situation I was in if they can avoid it.

So if you have any questions for me or want referrals, whether or not you have other friends or family or online forums and such to turn, you should absolutely feel free to ask me if you want to - just take a moment to reach out by filling in this contact form here.

I don't know all the answers, but I've learned so much along the way, and luckily with the help of kind neighbours and friends we've met and who have supported us along the way, I'm happy to share what I do know and pass along that kindness that they so openly gave to me. And if I don't know the answer - well I'm sure one of these kind people does, and that they'd be more than happy to answer the question for me.

But when it comes to lawyers in particular - definitely, finding someone who has firsthand positive experience with a law firm or lawyer - is 100% the right way to make sure you are in good hands.

Best of luck!