Looking For The Right Lawyer For Your Toronto Small Business? Part One: Finding A Business Lawyer

For startups and entrepreneurs, hiring a corporate lawyer for the first time can be a daunting experience.After all, this is one of the most important and essential investments a small business owner can make to protect and grow their venture.

In this two-part series, we offer a few pointers to help you in your search for the best legal advisor.

Step One: Find a business lawyer.

Finding a good corporate lawyer is quite similar in nature to finding a good doctor or specialist. You need to ask around, and do some thoughtful, thorough research.

Here’s one quick consideration before you get started.

Think about what your legal needs are, and the type of firm that might best fill them.

Law firms can range in size from one lawyer to several hundred associates. If you are looking to prepare a shareholders’ agreement for example, an experienced sole practitioner might do a better job of it than a big firm (where it might be passed off to a junior, less experienced associate). Or perhaps you want the weight of a leading national firm behind you (which may come with a hefty price tag).Once you’ve decided on the type of law firm you’re looking for, you can start searching for the best one to meet your needs.

Where will you find them?

Referrals

Recommendations from friends, colleagues, and your community can be helpful. You should ask what the relationship is between your contact and the lawyer, what type of work that lawyer did for them, and how long ago. The lawyer recommended may not be a good fit for your legal needs, but he or she might still be able to refer you to another professional who is.

The Local Bar Association

The Ontario Bar Association has a Find-a-Lawyer Directory that lists its members. But directories like these do not recommend or review lawyers. In the case of the Law Society’s licencee directory, they simply confirm that the lawyer is licensed to practice law. This type of resource is good to check once you’ve actually picked a lawyer, so you can verify he or she is not disbarred.

Online Research

While there are websites that rate lawyers out there, you need to exercise good judgment if you use them as a referral resource. How does the site vet and rate lawyers? If it’s by way of client reviews, are the reviews genuine? Do lawyers pay to be listed on the service?

Much more common is to locate a service provider through research on search engines, like Google. Using terms like “small business lawyer toronto” will turn up several results. (Keep in mind the first few results at the top of the page are ads that those firms paid for.)

Review the first few pages of results. Visit the lawyers’ websites and read their personal bios. Try to select candidates that have professional websites with no typos and substantial content.

The way lawyers run their online presence is likely very similar to the way they run their practice on the day-to-day. You want someone that exhibits professionalism, attention to detail, knowledge, and expertise.

The final step here is to search the law firm name you’re interested in and the word “reviews,” so you can see what others are saying about them. Google and Yelp reviews commonly appear on the first page of results. When reading the reviews, try to determine who’s making the review – a client, another lawyer, an employee? Do the reviews seem legitimate?

These avenues should turn up some lawyers of interest for you.

Stay tuned for the second post in this two-part series. We’ll provide you insight into how to hire the right corporate lawyer for your small business.

Contact An Experienced Corporate Lawyer Today

Anton M. Katz, Barrister & Solicitor has 22 years of corporate law and commercial litigation experience.

Contact us today to book your free initial consultation.

We look forward to hearing from you.