How Dating Rules Can Help You Find an Attorney

Editor's note: Since 1964, business-management counselors at nonprofit organization Score have given free advice to small-business clients spanning every industry. They currently serve nearly 400,000 entrepreneurs nationwide each year -- check in every week for their prudent guidance.

When's the last time you Googled someone before you went on a date? While everyone claims superiority to the practice, most of us are guilty. But we shouldn't be -- why not check someone out beforehand instead of going on a potentially disastrous date with a thrice-divorced "self-employed" poet?

Small-business owners would do well to treat their attorney hunt similarly. New to the business world, many first-time entrepreneurs use any attorney they know through friends or acquaintances, regardless of their industry. Others find someone online that they believe will fit their needs, without doing the required snooping.

The counselors at Score NYC know about the lawyer game. They also know that choosing an attorney to best fit your business needs should be like entering a healthy relationship. To lessen the chances of disastrous blind dates, Score sends its clients to a service that specializes in legal matchmaking: the New York City Bar Association's legal referral service, sponsored by the New York City Bar and the New York County Lawyers' Association. Unlike online-only services, it has 12 lawyers on staff, fielding between 500 and 700 calls a day from individuals and businesses of all sizes.

Bar association referral services do differ across the country; go to the American Bar Association's Web site for a list of referral services by state.

Don't Be Friends First

One of the most common errors entrepreneurs make is hiring a friend, a relative or someone's son or daughter who just graduated from law school, rather than doing further research and finding a lawyer well-suited to their needs, says Allen Charne, executive director of New York City and County's legal referral service.

A referral service can be your best friend. The staff of the New York legal referral service prescreens the nature of your legal needs, even if you have no idea how to proceed, and matches you up with the appropriate attorney.

"We try to refer clients to a lawyer with experience in their particular industry," says Charne.

Finding a lawyer in your industry becomes increasingly important the less you know about your industry, he says. Yet even an established family business that is opting for a contract with an outside vendor, for example, should look for someone well versed in liability and financing issues.