Locating a good lawyer for your small business may not be as easy as you think. The fact is that most lawyers lack in-depth experience in working for small businesses. Of the close to 650,000 practicing lawyers in America today, probably fewer than 50,000 possess sufficient training and experience in small business law to be of real help to you.

Compile a List of Prospects

Don?t expect to locate a good business lawyer by simply looking in the phone book, consulting a law directory or reading an advertisement. There?s not enough information in these sources to help you make a valid judgment. Almost as useless are lawyer referral services operated by bar associations. Generally, these services make little attempt to evaluate a lawyer?s skill and experience. They simply supply the names of lawyers who have listed with the service, often accepting the lawyer?s own word for what types of skills he or she has.

A better approach is to talk to people in your community who own or operate truly excellent businesses. These people obviously understand quality in other ways, so why not in lawyers? Ask them who their lawyer is and what they think of that person. Ask them about other lawyers they?ve used and what led them to make a change. If you talk to half a dozen business people, chances are you?ll come away with several good leads.

Other people who provide services to the business community can also help you identify lawyers you should consider. For example, speak to your banker, accountant, insurance agent and real estate broker. These people come into frequent contact with lawyers who represent business clients and are in a position to make informed judgments. Friends, relatives and business associates within your own company can also provide names of possible lawyers. But ask them specifically about lawyers who have had experience working for business clients and consider carefully whether they really know enough about business and human nature to know what they?re talking about.

In some types of specialized businesses?software design, restaurants, plant nurseries?it can pay to work with a lawyer who already knows the field. That way you can take advantage of the fact that the lawyer is already fairly far up the learning curve. Besides having knowledge about a certain type of business, a specialist may have experience with specific types of legal problems; for example, a lawyer may have special expertise in zoning law, liquor licenses or intellectual property matters. Sometimes specialists charge a little more, but if their specialized information is truly valuable, it can be money well spent. Trade associations are often a good place to get referrals to specialists.

Here are a few other sources you can turn to for possible candidates in your search for a lawyer:

• The director of your state or local chamber of commerce may know of several business lawyers who have the kind of experience that you?re looking for.

• A law librarian can help identify authors in your state who have written books or articles on business law.

• The director of your state?s continuing legal education (CLE) program?usually run by a bar association, a law school or both?can identify lawyers who have lectured or written on business law for other lawyers. Someone who?s a ?lawyer?s lawyer? presumably has the extra depth of knowledge and experience to do a superior job for you?but may charge more.

• The chairperson of a state or county bar committee for business lawyers may be able to point out some well-qualified practitioners in your vicinity.

Once you have the names of several lawyers, a good source of more information about them is the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, available at most law libraries and some local public libraries. This resource contains biographical sketches of most practicing lawyers and information about their experience, specialties, education and the professional organizations they belong to. Many firms also list their major clients in the directory?an excellent indication of the types of practice the firm is engaged in. In addition, almost every lawyer listed in the directory, whether or not he or she purchased space for a biographical sketch, is rated ?AV,? ?BV? or ?CV.? These ratings come from confidential opinions that Martindale-Hubbell solicits from lawyers and judges. The first letter is for ?Legal Ability,? which is rated as follows:

?A??Very High to Preeminent

?B??High to Very High

?C??Fair to High

The ?V? part stands for ?Very High General Recommendation,? meaning that the rated lawyer adheres to professional standards of conduct and ethics. But it?s practically meaningless because lawyers who don?t qualify for it aren?t rated at all.

(Martindale-Hubbell prudently cautions that the absence of a rating shouldn?t be construed as a reflection on the lawyer; some lawyers ask that their rating not be published, and there may be other reasons for the absence of a rating.)

I believe that the rating system works remarkably well. Don?t make it your sole criterion for deciding on a potential lawyer for your business, but be reasonably confident that a lawyer who gets high marks from other business clients and an ?AV? rating from Martindale-Hubbell knows what he or she is doing.

You can reach Martindale-Hubbell online at http://www.martindale.com. The online listings contain everything except the ratings. Another excellent source of information about lawyers is West?s Legal Directory at http://www.lawoffice.com.

Excerpted from the "Legal Guide for Starting and Running a Small Business" by Fred S. Steingold
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