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You do not need a lawyer to assert a copyright. I've registered copyrights on three books and two web sites and I've never used a lawyer.
You don't say what country you're from and I don't know the procedures to register a copyright in any country other than the U.S. anyway. But here in the U.S., to register a copyright you fill out a form on the copyright office's web site and mail them two copies of your book. For a book, there is a fee of . (Fees for other things, songs, films, etc, vary.) That's it. You don't need a lawyer, and I don't know what a lawyer would do besides charge you a bunch of money to read the questions on the form to you and write down your answers. There are no tricky legal questions. It's things like the title of the book, the name of the author, and whether there is material in your book that you are not claiming copyright in, like if you have quotes from Shakespeare, you're presumably not claiming to own the rights to Shakespeare's plays.
I often hear people talk of mailing a copy of their book to themselves rather than registering the copyright. I don't see the point. The fee to register isn't that big. Is really a huge hurdle? In exchange for that you get the power of the copyright office behind your claim to have written this book, versus trying to argue in court that some alternative proof you have come up with should carry weight. I've never heard of someone keeping a copy with a lawyer. Presumably a lawyer would charge you a lot more than , and would have considerably less weight in court than a legal registration.
As I say, I'm in the U.S. Maybe procedures in your country are different. Tell us what country you're from and maybe someone can give you more specific advice.
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