Pretty soon after you come up with that brilliant idea for a new company, you are going to be looking for a laywer. Too bad that our litigious society has made it a necessity, but a necessity it is. If your idea is hot, you might even get pursued by several law firms who will offer 'special deals' to you. My advice: ask other successful entrepreneurs who they used, gather several names, and then go interview each and everyone of them. Choose the one you trust and you will enjoy working with - because you will be working with them closely for a long time. Hopefully that is the one for which you received the most recommendations and who has the most experience working with startups in your field.

No doubt, you will be courted by the senior partner. Make sure that when you seal the deal, that isn't the last time you spend any significant time with him/her. There is a tendency in many law firms to have the senior guy seal the deal and then pass you off right away to a lowly associate. That is definitely not what you bargained for.

Make sure you don't bargain away a significant part of your startup for free legal work upfront. Ask around and find out the range that others gave up. If you do the math later on and figure out you were paying $1000 an hour for work that normally costs $300, that wasn't a good deal. But you should be prepared to pay a slight uplift based on the law firm's willingness to take a risk on your startup.

Check out Guy Kawasaki's Top Ten (Sixteen) Lies of Lawyers for helpful advice and useful warnings!

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive