Choosing the Right Corporate Lawyer

Consider These Factors When Choosing a Corporate Lawyer

Understanding how to choose the right corporate lawyer is crucial for business owners. The right corporate attorney can become an extension of your existing business by providing expert legal guidance to keep your business protected, without interfering in your day-to-day operations.

At Merritt Law, we believe finding the right match between lawyer and client means everything. We’re a relational corporate law firm, not a transactional one—and this attribute helps us build strong ties with our clients, enabling us to do superior work for them. 

To help businesses identify a corporate attorney they can trust and rely on, here are our best tips for how to find the right lawyer.

Practice Areas

The world of corporate law is fairly broad, requiring a well-rounded set of legal skills and experience. When evaluating potential law firms, it’s essential for businesses to look into their various practice areas, ensuring each candidate has the experience and skills to handle the legal needs they face on a day-to-day basis—as well as those that may arise unexpectedly.

When assessing practice areas, be sure to weigh the demands of your specific industry accordingly. For example, a business in one industry may deal mostly with contracts, while another may need a lawyer with commercial real estate expertise. Still others may be navigating a major M&A transaction—but also need a legal partner after they come out the other side.

Understanding local regulations can also come into play. While corporate attorneys are generally working based on state law, some matters often also cross into county or municipal codes and regulations.

Reputation

Reputation is everything when determining how to choose the right corporate lawyer. While experience in the right practice areas matters a lot, the quality of your attorney’s work matters even more.

When evaluating the reputation of a corporate lawyer, do your best to assess both their ratings from clients and from their peers. Google Reviews can be a good source of information for the former. For the latter, you can check with the state bar association or with peer rating organizations like Martindale-Hubbell, which is based entirely on confidential ratings by unassociated attorneys in the industry. 

For example, Merritt Law holds an AV Preeminent rating, which is the highest peer rating standard for both ethics and skills. A lawyer that has achieved this standard comes highly recommended by others in their industry.

Client Relationships

Once you’ve narrowed down a few options, it’s time to start talking to different candidates to choose your corporate attorney. In talking to potential lawyers, try to evaluate the type of relationships they like to maintain with their clients—and determine if that relationship works for you.

If available, client referrals should be weighted heavily. If you were referred to some lawyers by their clients, take the time to ask them about their experience working with each law firm and evaluate that lawyer’s approach.

It’s also important to know how they approach interactions with other businesses or lawyers. Negotiating contracts and other legal matters is a large part of what a corporate lawyer does. Do they always try to come out on top? Or do they look to find win-win solutions wherever possible?

At Merritt Law, we believe getting to know our clients as people and business leaders is essential to our effectiveness as a corporate law firm. The more we understand our clients, the better we can seek to achieve their desired results.

Communication Style

This is closely tied to client relationships, but the communication style of a potential lawyer also matters a great deal. As you learn more about their client relationships, you’ll also get a feel for how they approach communicating legal advice to their clients.

Of particular importance is how your corporate lawyer approaches disagreements when it comes to legal matters. If an approach you’re taking doesn’t make sense from a legal standpoint, will they be direct and raise this matter to you? And if so, how will they do so—tactfully, behind closed doors, or in front of the rest of your company?

When talking with clients on a day-to-day basis, are they strictly business? Or do they go out of their way to understand a bit more about your personality, your life, and the history and goals of your business?

At Merritt Law, we value honesty, directness, and establishing strong working and personal relationships with our clients. That works for many people—but it won’t necessarily work for everyone.

Fee Structure

Of course, hiring a corporate attorney is an investment for your business. While it’s important to consider your bottom line, most businesses should avoid choosing the cheapest lawyer just for the sake of saving money. 

For many small to medium-sized businesses, flexibility will be key. Some lawyers work only for flat fees or on an hourly basis—but having the flexibility to work either way can be very beneficial.

Obviously, we understand every client wants to find legal services at an economical rate. For our team at Merritt Law, our combination of extensive experience and smaller size generally enables us to beat big firm rates while delivering excellent quality efficiently.

Merritt Law: Corporate Law Firm Serving Austin and All of Texas

At Merritt Law, our reputation as a corporate lawyer is strong, both in Austin and throughout the state of Texas. We feel this is because of our relationship-focused approach to law, in which we represent our clients well because we understand them well. 

Navigating how to choose the right lawyer can be daunting, especially in corporate law, where legal needs are frequent and varied. At Merritt Law, we have experience across the spectrum of corporate and business law, enabling us to be the only phone call our clients need to make.

If you’d like to learn more about our services or determine if we’d be a good fit for your business, get in touch with our team online or call 737-279-7290.