Finding a good law firm is hard. Even for the most experienced entrepreneur, the confusing combination of legalese and hourly rates, teamed with the fear of what might happen if you don’t have certain contracts in place, makes the hunt for a good firm a necessary, but scary, evil.
However over the years we have identified a few tips to navigate this legal minefield.
Seek recommendations from your network
Getting a tried and tested recommendation from a contact in your network is a great way to source a solicitor – it beats wading through a sea of search results generated by Google.
However when you seek our recommendations, approach contacts who operate similar businesses to yours. They will have used their legal adviser to help with the same issues you’re incurring so your adviser will be accurately tried and tested. There’s little point going to the solicitor used by the FD of a listed company – he is more likely to be used to handling M&A rather than the run-of-the-mill HR contracts you need.
Don’t be intimidated
Solicitors are suppliers, plain and simple. Don’t be put off from seeing them first and foremost as service delivers, no matter how distracting their legalese, hourly rates and fancy titles seem.
If you’re being baffled by their solicitor speak, tell them. If they can’t tone it down, they’re not the team for you. Law is not a dark art or a foreign language. Your adviser should be able to explain in layman’s terms to allow you to understand. It concerns your business after all.
Negotiate a package that suits you
As with all suppliers, they should be able to recommend a plan that works for you. When starting up you’re likely to need extensive help to get all your contracts in place. So a fixed price monthly plan that allows you to use them as often as you want for the three months is probably ideal. But once you have all your essentials in place, it might be more cost efficient to scale back their time to a mobile phone style model of so many months per month.
When we first started our business, hourly rates concerned us as it means costs are difficult to forecast – a big issue when cash flow is tight. However the legal landscape as law firms become more commercially aware of their client’s needs. As a result a lot more firms are offering fixed price packages in-line with clients’ needs.
Use your law team to furnish your own toolkit
There are certain legal documents you need as a start-up. For example employee contracts, supplier agreements, non-disclosure agreements and health and safety documents. But once you have a template for each drafted, you should be able to tweak as required, as long as legislation doesn’t change.
Use FOC legislation updates
For what you need at a start-up level, small independent high street or online-based firms are probably ideal for the expertise they offer and the cost they charge.
However it’s worth signing up to newsletters from bigger national firms who have the resource to provide regular legislation updates free of charge.
Your small firm probably won’t have the resource to do this. But firms like Pinsent Mason, Brilliant Law, Addleshaw Goodard, Clifford Chance do. These are great tools for finding out changes to HR law as they happen, putting you an informed position that enables you to decide whether you need your templates updated or to commission your firm to produce something completely new.
Further reading on legal advice
