Here’s a trick I use. I contact a lawyer that I trust personally who does not practice in the area that I’m interested in. Then I ask for a recommendation. Call a divorce lawyer you know and ask for three sources to set up business documents for example. The trick is to make sure they do not practice in that area. As a general rule, lawyers know who the good lawyers are better than your Uncle Bob or college buddy.

I make this recommendation based on my past experiences. I am an attorney and have been asked by numerous friends and family members to help them out with legal work. These requests have been somewhat varied, but generally have been outside my expertise — e.g., divorce, real estate sale, DUI, etc. I referred each of these people to an attorney who (1) I know personally or who I know his/her reputation, and (2) specialized in the area they needed. It took five minutes of my time, and has always worked out.

If neither you nor your close friends or family members have such a personal relationship, you can look to the referral services recommended above (or ask a law professor, as I previously suggested, or an employer, as was suggested by others). Many of these services are not all that helpful — an attorney simply pays money or elects to be listed among practitioners in a certain discipline. But, they do provide a first step, and (at the very least) a list of individuals to interview.

Banks have a lot of steady, time sensitive and detail oriented legal work. Because of this, banks require a relationship with a good lawyer, and good lawyers find themselves attracted to banks. (In a few small towns here in Kansas, you’ll even find the lawyer’s office on the second floor of the main street bank).

Now, the bank’s lawyer might not have any time or specialized knowledge for your issue, but he or she will know who is good in the area, and give the best recommendation for your needs.

But it is good to know how to find one if something does come-up. Generally you will probably find only a few situations in life ( hopefully) where you need a lawyer for a specific circumstance.

Maybe I’m a bit ignorant/arrogant, but I can’t see why many people would ever need a CPA. To clarify, I mean for “regular” people who have W2 jobs without any complications- probably the majority of people. Even though the US tax code is complicated, most personal tax filing is pretty simple. So when someone mentions going to “their CPA” just to have “taxes done” I always wonder if the person is just trying to sound important ( like the phony types who talk about their “power team” of lawyers, accountants, metors,etc). If you are self-employed, very wealthy, and/or utilize complicated business structures- well that’s different.

http://www.wealthcounsel.com/memberdirectory.aspx

If you need a great estate attorney in the PHX AZ area, look up David Harowitz.

http://www.harowitz.net/

I have not interest in recommending Dave, other than the satisfaction of referring someone to an outstanding attorney that really cares about your needs as primary.

Even if you are referred to someone who has the experience you want in the field you need, you need to have a conversation with them to make sure they are a good fit for you. You should feel comfortable with them; if you don’t, then you should hire someone else. Ask Nicole’s questions to get a feel for how they will handle your case.

State bar associations also list which attorneys have had ethics violations and complaints. You should check that out also.

I’m a lawyer in Nevada and also licensed in Maryland. I hope this is helpful.

As far as questions to ask a lawyer, it’s hard to answer because some of it depends on your legal needs. But generally:

1. How long have you been practicing law?
2. What are your areas of specialty?
3. How long in each of these areas?
4. Where do you fit in to the structure of the law firm? (e.g. is this a partner, associate, counsel - what is their place in the hierarchy?)
5. How many lawyers in your firm?
6. Who else would be responsible for my case? How many people?
7. What is your billing rate and the rates of those who would be working on my case?
8. Have you ever worked on any matters similar to mine? how many? in what way were they similar? in what way were they different? what strategies did you use on those cases? what were the outcomes?
9. Do you have any philosphy regarding the role of the lawyer and the provision of legal services? What is it? What do you do to fulfill or meet that philosophy?
10. If I retain you, how can I be assured that I will be able to contact you when I need?
11. Will you provide regular updates on the case and in what form?
12. How important is it to you to minimize costs to the client?
13. How do you do that?

You should also have specific questions about the case itself that you can ask the lawyer. In a perfect world, what I would do is draft a memo describing the matter or the case in as much detail as possible - include a chronology of events if possible. Then provide a list of questions to be answered. Provide this to the lawyer before the meeting and tell him/her that you want him to address, at least preliminarily, the questions in the memo, based on the information you provided.

If the lawyer actually reviews the memo and provides answers to most of the questions, you probably have a keeper.

The first consultation should be free.

I am purchasing a house as we speak and found a great lawyer that is taking care of my contract review, titling, and closing - it is costing me no more than the $6 I pay out of my paycheck. In this one transaction, I have piad for the premium multiple times over. I even ran into a problem with the seller and didnt have to worry about calling my guy to write a letter - I knew it would cost me nothing.

I highly recommend it to anyone who has the option.

On my last house purchase I had the same problem that ClickerTrainer described in post #9. The lawyer I used was recommended both by a friend and by my employer’s relocation service. When the day came to close on my house purchase, however, the lawyer’s assistant told me that they were three months behind on completing files and would not have my copies of the documents ready for several months. I politely but very firmly told her that this was unacceptable and she completed my file the following week. I’m not sure how the lawyer’s other clients made out though.

Another technique I have chosen is linked to personal recommendations, but requires a bit of creative thinking. Do you know a professional who’s NOT a CPA or lawyer? A financial planner? A real estate agent? A business coach?

Through a friend I found a management consultant who was able to steer me to the people I needed. Not exactly a personal recommendation though.

As for questions to ask a CPA, why is your tax complicated? What is your tax likely to do in the next few years? Do you want someone to just do your tax, or for future business and investment advice? I’m currently looking for a CPA with a financial planning registration so in the short term they can help with tax, but in the longer term can help set up investments. I’m also looking for a lawyer to set up other legal structures for the future. Chances are, when I find one, I’ll find the other.

It can be a long process to find the “right” CPA or lawyer for you, but it’s worth it to take the time NOW rather than later.

This kind of reminds me of the Steve Martin joke about how to become a millionaire - “First, get a million dollars….”

It seems most of the responses are still centered around personal recommendations of friends/family. But the whole point of this post was:

“But what if you can’t find somebody based on recommendations? What then?”

I like dorthy’s repsonse #8 - check your place of employment and see if they offer any referral services or maintain a list of preferred legal/accounting providers. That seems like a good starting point.

JD - Can we expect to see a post in the future that summarizes the best ideas put forth here? I think that would be great and it would be a very useful list to have.

I got a personal recommendation for an attorney, and ended up with a dud. She would not finish my paperwork. Every time I called her to request she complete it, she charged me more time on my account. Finally I had to call in a favor from a friend who’s husband is the only judge in the county. I don’t know what was said, but magically my paperwork was completed in a few hours.

One of the best ways to find the “right” lawyer is through personal recommendations of other lawyers. So first, get in contact with an attorney you can trust. If you don’t know someone personally, chances are that at least one of your close friends or family members does, and will facilitate an introduction. Because attorneys are usually very specialized (and, if they’re not, you should be very weary of hiring them), this lawyer will likely not have the expertise you seek. (It is also important to note that you make your request very specific, e.g., “I’m looking for an attorney who specializes in tax law to help me out with a new LLC that I want to start.”) Lawyers (like other professionals) know a lot of people in the field — lawyers generally know a lot of lawyers (and their reputations) and can therefore steer you to the right person.

Second, interview the candidate, and ask lots of questions. E.g., What is your speciality? How long have you been practicing? Will you personally be doing the work, or will you have another lawyer/paralegal/investigator be doing it? How many other cases/situations have you handled like mine? Most of these questions are common sense. It is helpful to remember that you are hiring someone to work for you, so think of it like you’re conducting a job interview.

A few other resources:
* Each state has a licensing agency known as the Bar Association. You can go to your state’s website, which will likely have tools for people looking for a lawyer.
* Check out your local law school. There may be resources for finding a lawyer generally. Also, if you are brave, you may try contacting a professor who specializes in the area — using the example from above, a professor who teaches tax courses — and asking for a recommendation or for local resources to finding a competent person.

Wish we all could do that! Unfortunately the law says you can only be married once at a time!

You don’t need to find a Harvard graduate or con law scholar to incorporate your business or handle your divorce. You just need someone who will do the work. Finding this person is harder than it sounds! The number one complaint clients have about their lawyers is not that the lawyers are incompetent. It is that their lawyers don’t return their phone calls.

So imagine your best friend has a family friend who’s a lawyer. That family friend won’t want to blow you off, because she is accountable not just to you but also to her friend.

Disclosure: I am a lawyer who hired a bad lawyer! It is really tough to be sure that you’re hiring someone good.