Six Characteristics a Lawyer Should Have When Starting a Long Term Collaboration for Your Business
Opening a business - be it an enterprise or just a freelancing entity - has its own advantages. However, to reach to enjoy its beautiful parts, in the beginning, it can feel more like a struggle. Notwithstanding the business plan and activity planning, the legal hurdles remain somethings that ‘needs to be done’ and that we never focus on them.
We prepared 6 tips for finding the lawyer fit to your needs, and that can take this heaviness off your shoulders.
If you’re more of a DIY person, probably you’ll be thinking why I am here. We all reach a limit point once in our lifetime. So, when you feel that you have had enough with all the small legal tricks that occupy your time, you might want to know already how you are sure to collaborate with a good lawyer—a lawyer that it’s going to bring you more comfort, and not more problems.
1. Certified lawyer - or not?
Depending on the country you have the professional activity, or temporary residence settled, or conduct business with a client, you must be aware of whom is entitled to provide you legal advice.
There are countries where only certified attorneys have the right to offer legal consultancy on business matters - such as Romania, France, Croatia, Portugal etc. On the other hand, there are states where the freedom of providing legal services is broader, and the requirements are scarce - such as Sweden or Russia.
You might think, So what? If the person knows her drill, that's fine with me. Which, until a specific limit, you can actually be right. But, some procedures are given into the exclusive competence of a certified lawyer. Then, you might even end up with the entire process declared null. What does this mean? That you need to start it all over and pay extra money to someone who can legally do it.
2. Communication - the key to everything.
A professional lawyer should ask questions. She should sometimes even annoy you with items to find out precisely what you want as a service from her. He should never suppose he understood, but try to find out more. Also, a great attorney would keep you in touch about the evolution of your matter. Is the contract drafted or not? Did she talk to the other party? Did he register your entity?
Communication also means how fast you receive an answer from someone who would like to take your case. Receiving a response in two weeks from the very beginning of your relationship is already a red flag. Of course, attorneys are busy people, and you should understand that as well. You wouldn’t want for your lawyer to answer other phone calls or write emails while drafting your contract.
3. Area of expertise - how much does it matter?
Many great attorneys have expertise in diverse areas of law. If you check attentively, you’ll see that in most of the cases they are complimentary - for example, a consultancy in business law, contracts and labour law. No one can do the work of twelve, so try to find those lawyers that follow their passion and love the speciality they choose to work in.
4. References and Recommendations
Check with your community of freelancers, business peers, or even friends and see if anyone worked with an attorney or recommend you to a legal community, such as Avoteca. Even in the tech world, we are living today, there is nothing better than real and authentic peer reviews when choosing your long term attorney.
5. Truth - the value of a long term relationship
Both you and your lawyer cannot last long together unless you speak the truth to each other and don’t hide multiple information. Even if it might be something you don’t want to share, imagine how embarrassing it could be for both of you if your clients find it out before your lawyer. And uses it as leverage in the negotiation. Not good.
6. Legal fee
As with all services, a minimal fee becomes as much as a red flag as a very high fee. You should never choose your lawyer based solely on the legal expense she’s requesting for her services. It must be a correlation between the cost and all the other criteria from above. You should be the first to understand the services market - good services means a lot of back research and effort and must be fairly repaid.
Are you considering collaborating with a lawyer in your business? Or maybe just want to know how much would it cost you a specific service? Check out our legal community here and choose the legal professionals that fit best with you.
Ana-Maria Drăgănuță Briard
Lawyer & Co-founder of Avoteca | Podcaster at Legal Tale Podcast
06 October 2020