How To Choose the Right Legal Advisor for Your Business?

Disclaimer: This article contains information which only serves as general guidelines and should not be considered as actual legal advice. If you want to further understand the subject matter, feel free to keep in touch with an experienced lawyer.

Every business, regardless of its nature, usually comes with its fair share of legal issues, and these problems can only be handled by competent and experienced legal advisors. A legal advisor is a lawyer who provides legal services to business corporations and organizations.  That’s why it’s obvious that the services of a legal advisor are an essential element in attaining business growth and success in the long run. If you think your business also needs a legal advisor, below are the key ways on how to choose the right legal advisor for your business:

1. Use Your Connections Or Network:

In getting the most appropriate legal advisor for your business, the good way to start your search is through the recommendations from your network.

• When you use your network’s recommendations, you’re most likely getting first-hand reviews rather than simply relying on Google search results.
• Remember that referrals coming from your connections appear to be more reliable than collecting a pool of information online.
• In deciding to use your network’s referrals, make sure that your choices of legal advisors to choose from coming from the same nature of business as yours. In other words, these legal advisors are those who have already encountered the same legal issues that are faced by your business.

2. Review Licenses And Qualifications:

Choosing the right legal advisor requires thorough research to review their licenses and qualifications.

• In your desire to hire the ideal legal advisor for your business, try to check if they are licensed and qualified attorneys who are eligible to practice law in the place where you reside.
• Take note of their legitimate qualifications by checking what areas of law they specialize in. Make sure that the legal advice your business needs is in line with what your chosen legal advisor is experienced at giving. That way, you’ll be assured that the legal advisor knows how to handle your particular issue without difficulty.
• Also, try to inquire about your legal advisor’s years of experience and if they have already managed clients who have issues similar to yours. Doing so will give you an idea on how knowledgeable your legal advisor is in a particular field of law.
• Remember also to check how well they can communicate in handling the legal matters of your business. You also have to check and see how conveniently their offices are located so that you’ll not have a difficult time reaching out for some possible urgent legal matters that may arise in the future.

3. Check How They Bill Their Services:

When you’re almost done checking your advisor’s credentials, maybe it’s about time that you check how they bill their services.

• Take note that lawyers, when hired for their legal services, can be expensive. This is one of the reasons why some business owners fear the idea of maintaining legal advisors for their business.
• While there’s an assumption that getting lawyers is not pocket-friendly at all, there are still various ways on how lawyers charge their time. Let’s check these out:

1. Hourly Rate – In most cases, attorneys charge their services using an hourly rate. It may be quite costly especially when you spend almost every day talking to your legal advisors. In hourly rate, keep in mind that your lawyer can bill you by day if they’re required to travel.
2. Monthly Retainer – If you think you need a legal advisor from time to time, you can contract and pay an attorney on a monthly basis. This payment scheme is beneficial when you have a series of routine questions to ask.
3. Flat Rate – Some lawyers prefer flat rate as a mode of payment. It works especially when you’re dealing with routine matters. An example of this is checking a contract.
4. Contingency Fee – Contingency fees paid to lawyers in lawsuits and other complicated legal issues. It means that the success of the case will allow them to recover a particular percentage of the proceeds.

• If you think one method can benefit your business more than the others, don’t hesitate to talk to your attorney and discuss your proposed payment terms. However, you have to be sure that you’re getting the most flexible payment arrangement that your business needs.
• Whatever mode of payment you’re choosing in billing your legal advisor, what’s important is you try negotiating their price so that both needs are met.
• When you’ve already come up with an arrangement with your legal advisor, make sure to create a contract specifying the nature of their services and your agreed billing method.

Just like finding the right attorney to represent you after an accident, you’d also want to take every step to ensure that the legal representation of your business is well thought-out. Selecting a legal advisor to handle the legal issues of your business is not an easy job. It requires an in-depth understanding of the factors used in choosing the perfect legal advisor who matches your business’s needs. That is why we anticipate that the examples given above can help you choose the right legal advisor for your business.

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