Choosing the Right Lawyer for Your Business

Finding the right lawyer is an important piece to a successful business. In this video, Ivan Ivankovich, CFO of docstoc.com, shares his opinion about when and how to hire a lawyer.

Transcribed article based on the video above.

Finding a lawyer for business is a difficult decision to make. You really need to find the right lawyer and determining what is right or what the right advisor or lawyer is, is a difficult question. Usually you don’t know if that’s the right lawyer until it’s too late, until a year later when there is a claim and maybe you didn’t draft the contract correctly or you’ve been acquired and you did something incorrect in the corporate structure that is going to require more rework and more time.

It’s really important to choose the right lawyer from the initial get go, to set things up properly, set up your contracts correctly, setup your capitalization and corporate books and records properly. How do you go about doing that? How do you find that right lawyer? Be careful of family and friends. Don’t just pick your uncle because he’s an attorney. Really find law firms or individuals that specialize in your industry, ask that person about what kind of clients they have, are their clients similar to what you are trying to build in the business you’re building? Are they familiar with the challenges and the risks associated with your business?

Really do your homework early, it will save you a lot of time in a year from now when there is an event, hopefully not a claim, but maybe it’s a positive, you’re being acquired. You want to make sure everything is in order so you don’t have issues down the road. Be careful, spend a lot of time, interview people and choose the right lawyer to help you grow your business.

Ivan Ivanjovich is the CFO of Docstoc. You can read more of his posts here on Docstoc at the DocstocTV profile page.