Sean Brown: How to Select the Right Lawyer?

Within the business world today, entrepreneurs find it exhausting, if not downright scary, to start a successful business that will not fail in the first year, or to grow a business that will make it to the next level. While seeking free advice from business development organizations can help get your questions answered and ideas validated, in the end, your most valuable resources are your business advisors, namely your accountant, banker and lawyer. The trick is to pick your “dream team” wisely and allow them to work with you in the long-term, not for you on one isolated project. One of your most important “dream team” members is a trusted lawyer — one who understands that his or her role is to add value to your business in a kind of partnership. **Sean Brown** is an Advocate who is an expert in the field of law. Distinctive nations’ lawful frameworks utilize the term with fairly varying implications.

Like any successful partnership, the right partner understands that he or she must take an active, rather than passive, role in the business-offering creative solutions, communicating regularly and effectively, and exhibiting a real interest and passion in the business and the industry within which it operates.

Sean Brown

Too often, lawyers, bankers, and accountants view their job as restricted to drafting, preparing, submitting or reviewing documents. They do not put themselves in the entrepreneur’s shoes, and instead abdicate any responsibility, claiming that your job as a business owner is to be the risk-taker. The problem with that approach is that it presumes you have the experience to know the legal and financial needs of your business, when in reality, you may not. Perhaps you just started your company and do not realize that the independent contractor you hired to create a logo for your new business could claim rights to the resulting artwork without a work-for-hire contract. Or perhaps you are trying to grow your business, but have never raised money and do not know how much decision-making control to give your investors.

Guidelines

Follow these three straightforward guidelines: Inquire about his or her experience representing similar businesses. A legal advisor that has counseled other businesses in your industry will be in a stronger position to add value than one who is more of a generalist. He or she will be able to foresee situations that can save you time, money and aggravation, simply by virtue of the fact that they have been there before. For example, if you are in the restaurant business, a lawyer who has represented other restaurateurs will know to negotiate the definition of “sales” in the percentage rent clause of your lease so that you avoid paying a percentage of sales that are extraneous to your main business.

Similarly, if you are in the real estate business, a lawyer who has counseled other real estate owners will know that your third-party property management contract should delineate the precise rights and duties of the management company.

This kind of advice and expertise is crucial to entrepreneurs as they take their first steps to creating a solid business practice. Hiring a lawyer without experience in your industry is like getting on an airplane flown by a helicopter pilot; he or she may know how to fly, but doesn’t have the specific knowledge needed to get the job done in a way that makes you feel secure.

Request a Plan, Budget and Timetable

After you describe the current state of your business (whether that state is start-up or growth) and explain why you believe that at this moment in time your business requires his or her services, the lawyer you are considering for a position on your “team” should be able to map out step-by-step plans detailing what he can do for you. These would include estimates of how much the services will cost, and when each step in the plan can be achieved, A selected advisor’s proposed plan, budget and timetable should make sense for your business and, most importantly, for your budget.