How do you pick a lawyer? Word of mouth? A billboard? The Net? My friend especially likes the lawyer advertisements that she sees on the side of trash cans; she says it really puts the entire attorney thing in perspective. Obviously, she isn't a fan of lawyers. But in today's world, where lawyers can advertise, you are inundated with ads in several different forms: the park bench you sit on, the radio you hear and yes, the trash can you throw refuse in!

The first thing to do is familiarize yourself with the laws in your state. Web sites are great due to this. A great website can give you a great overview about the laws in your region. With all of the data available on the web, there isn't any excuse for being uninformed.

Here are a few of the very best resources to discover good lawyers in your area:

In the event you know other business people within the community, you could wish to ask them for referrals and recommendations regarding good business legal firms and business lawyers within the community. Although you will want to compile these recommendations, you will also want to take them with a grain of salt because you can't be sure whether the recommendation is definitely an informed one. If you meet lawyers with specialties you don't need, you might wish to ask them for recommendations.

Nearly all law practice has a site. Law firm websites vary considerably in their quality and the amount of information they provide. Some law practice websites provide an incredibly limited amount of biographical information. Other web pages provide complete biographical information, and also publications, and sometimes even blogs and podcasts.

LinkedIn is a social networking site for professionals. LinkedIn allows a user to post a detailed profile. Many lawyers are on LinkedIn. Some have posted detailed profiles, others have not. LinkedIn is growing, and many more lawyers seem to be taking it seriously. As of this time, LinkedIn is hit or miss on details about lawyers, but it is worth checking.

When you have the name of a particular lawyer you want to research, Google (and Bing and Yahoo) can be valuable. In "Googling" a lawyer's name, for various often find other details about a lawyer, sometimes including links to articles the lawyer has written or links to cases the lawyer has handled. The "advanced search" feature on Google may be useful in narrowing results.

There are many subscription services that provide access to all case law and several legal publications, consumer protection and also to news and information. It is possible to use these databases to search for cases that a lawyer has handled. Most business people, on the contrary, don't gain access to these expensive resources. Thus, I mention them as possibilities for deep research, however they are actually not essential to locate the best lawyer.