Check These Sites To Sharpen Search For Good Lawyer

(Originally published in The Business Journal)

On the top of your pile of mail is a certified mail envelope from the Clerk of Courts office.  You get a sinking feeling, and you know right away that this can’t be anything good. Sure enough, inside the envelope is a summons and complaint suing your business.

Now what do you do?

The first thing you should do is decide whether you need a good trial lawyer to represent your company or whether any lawyer will do. Although the fees a lawyer charges are imperfectly related to how good the lawyer is, there is some relationship. 

Ask yourself: If the opposing party was awarded everything he wants, what would the impact be on the business?  If only a few hundred dollars or even a few thousand dollars are at issue, a good lawyer may not make enough of a difference in the outcome to pay for the difference in fees.  And sometimes a good lawyer may make no difference in the outcome.

Let’s assume that you decide you need a good lawyer.  What is a “good lawyer” and how do you find one?

At the very least, a “good lawyer” is someone who has a good knowledge base and who doesn’t have to “reinvent the wheel” for your case.

Consulting the phone book won’t help much.  It doesn’t rate the lawyers who advertise in it. 

You could call good old Harvey, who drafted your will, but he very well might not have a much better opinion than you do about lawyers who practice outside of his area of the law.  Well, call good old Harvey, particularly if it’s been a while since you talked to him.

But first, use your computer to get on the internet.

Ohio has a certification process that allows a lawyer who has met the requirements for certification in a particular area to call himself or herself a “specialist’ in that area.  You can find a specialist in the type of law you need by visiting the websites of the organizations the Ohio Supreme Court allows to certify specialists.

These organizations include:

• Xxxx, at abcworld.org: Business bankruptcy, consumer bankruptcy, and creditors rights law.
• Xxx Xxxxx, at nbtanet.org: Civil trial, criminal trial and family law trial.
• Xxx Xxxxx, at nelf.org: Elder law.
• The Ohio Bar Association, at ohiobar.org: Workers compensation, family relations law, federal tax, labor and employment,  estate planning, trust and probate law, business, commercial and industrial real property law, residential real property law, and appellate law.

One caveat: there are a number of good lawyers who are not certified.  To become certified you must take a test, and some lawyers don’t want to take any more tests after the bar examination.

Another excellent internet resource is Martindale Hubbell, at martindale.com, principally because of its lawyer ratings.  Lawyers are rated either av, bv, cv or not rated, with av meaning “very high to pre-eminent,”  bv meaning “high to very high,” and cv meaning “good to high.” Martindale is the granddaddy of lawyer rating resources.

A more recent resource is Super Lawyers, superlawyers.com, which lists lawyers in various areas of the law who have been nominated and selected by other lawyers.  Best Lawyers, at bestlawyers.com, is yet another resource, but requires a subscription.

Professional organizations are also a good indicator of a lawyer’s professional interests, and those beginning with “American College of…” are prestigious invitation-only organizations.

Using these resources will likely give you several promising candidates. Now ask Harvey, the fellow who drafted your will, what he thinks of the lawyers on your list.

When you talk to one of the lawyers on the list, ask him or her if she will actually be representing you and doing most of the work on your case. It does you little good to have a well qualified and experienced lawyer listed on the court proceedings if, practically, you will be represented by a young associate who has been admitted to the bar for six months.

Finally, following the steps in this column doesn’t guarantee that you will be represented by a lawyer who will do a good job for your company. This part of the column is called a disclaimer.

Good hunting.

Blomstrom can be reached at jblomstrom@hhmlaw.com or at (330) 744-1111.