Best Practices in Selecting Legal Counsel Part 1: Introduction

The first step for a new or mature business in getting great legal services is to do a great job selecting legal counsel. Surprisingly, as simplistic as this sounds, it’s a step even the most sophisticated clients often overlook or don’t do very well. Here are four best practices suggestions for clients in selecting legal counsel:

• The client should find a lawyer who has experience and expertise in providing the specific range of legal services the client is seeking.
• The client should know what the client is “purchasing” and then validate that the lawyer is “selling” the same thing.
• The client should have a clear understanding of the fee arrangement and any other important aspects of the lawyer’s engagement agreement.
• Legal counsel should be selected with a long-term view of the client’s business rather than for one-off advice or documentation.

These suggestions may seem obvious and easy. However, experience indicates that much more is at stake than one might conclude from a cursory reading.

Check back in with the Krause Law blog often, as each of these suggestions will be addressed in more depth through a serious of blog posts on this same topic