It’s one of life’s truths that no one calls an attorney unless and until they’re in trouble. Then again, who is eager to see a doctor or a dentist without a good reason?

“The analogy is a very good one,” says Miles Scully, managing partner for the Southern California office of Gordon & Rees. “People go to attorneys only when they’re ‘sick,’ rather than for checkups. In a lot of the litigation we handle, if the client had an attorney look over the contract or the employee handbook for a couple of hundred dollars, they could have saved themselves tens of thousands.”

The problem is that having spent all this time avoiding seeing a lawyer, most businesspeople lack the skills to conjure one up on demand. The stakes could be as high as a stack of Benjamins, or in the case of a criminal accusation, it could be your life (see sidebar).

Scully cuts right to the heart of the matter. “The problem with all professional services is that it’s very hard to tell who is the best or who is better than another person,” Scully says.

But you don’t have to fly blind. “You should never hire an attorney until you’ve interviewed three of them,” he says. “Most good attorneys will interview for free. I tell prospective clients not to hire me till they’ve interviewed two others.”

The recommended way to find the three is by word of mouth. The process could be as informal as a round of golf with players you respect (for their business savvy, not their birdies).

Check online to see whether an attorney you’re considering is a specialist in the area you need. “If you’re going to have brain surgery, you don’t want an orthopedic surgeon,” Scully says. “You could go to the office with your problem and the attorney might say, ‘Sure, I do that,’ but if you look on their Web site, what they do becomes pretty clear. The law is getting increasingly specialized — there’s just too much for an attorney to know. And if you do hire a generalist, you’re going to pay to get them up to speed.”

Eric Acker, a partner in Morrison & Foerster’s San Diego office, agrees with the approach of holding a “beauty contest” before hiring an attorney. But in a business context, knowing you need representation needn’t be a bolt from the blue. “Typically, there are warning signs,” he says. “A series of letters that go back and forth, rumblings, someone finds out someone’s product is infringing their patents.”

Acker’s hiring checklist includes intelligence, experience in a specialty, trial savvy, experience in whatever court the matter is pending, cost and a few intangibles. “Look beyond the No. 1 lawyer to the supporting staff, look at the whole picture, the whole fit,” he advises. “When you have a conversation, how do you react to them?”

If you’ve used an attorney for any reason, such as the drafting of a will, for example, you may already have a pipeline to an attorney in a different specialty. That’s particularly true if your lawyer is part of a large firm, says Lawrence Kouns, partner and chair of Business Litigation Practice Group at the San Diego office of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps. “The large firm client might have a relationship with someone else in the firm,” so a referral can be as simple as walking down the hall.

Then there’s the case of the out-of-towner. “In the product liability arena, there might be a manufacturer who hasn’t had litigation in San Diego for several years and they might get sued in San Diego,” Kouns says. “They might belong to a business organization and they could contact a member of the organization and say, ‘who do you use in San Diego?’ and hopefully that person would think of me or my firm.”

Although codes and procedures in courts may be nearly uniform, Kouns says out-of-town defendants are better off hiring someone in the jurisdiction where they are sued. “Local practitioners know the judges, know the court procedures and know the juries better than lawyers from out of town. Going into a foreign jurisdiction, you’ve got some things to learn.”

Look Out, Here Comes The Railroad

Although Jim Gilpin, managing partner of the San Diego office of Best, Best & Krieger, does most of his work for governments, he occasionally represents businesses or homeowners who are no longer the masters of their domain because the government has decided to build a freeway, a trolley line or even a stadium. Unwittingly standing in the way of progress can be bewildering and expensive, so Gilpin suggests calling the county bar referral service to find an attorney who is a master of this specialty. Other referring agents could be business appraisers, real property managers and brokers.

“Typically, the (client will) get an offer letter from the government,” he says. Once the property owner has hired counsel, she can argue that the city “didn’t do a proper review, or they don’t need to take my property or they took more than they need.” Even if the property owner can’t stop the railroad, Gilpin says an attorney can be valuable in making sure just compensation is offered, and in thinking of related financial issues such as loss of goodwill for a business, or relocation costs and expenses.

Attorneys aren’t always called in to pick up the pieces. Domenic Drago, managing partner of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton’s Del Mar Heights office, has a “transactional practice.” In other words, he’s a dealmaker.

Specializing in real estate and corporate transactions, Drago’s job is to make sure his side of a sale or purchase walks away from the deal whistling a happy tune. How would you find him? “Most likely word of mouth or referral from another who has used the firm,” he says. “Or business acquaintances. It’s rare that someone would look you up in Martindale-Hubbell.”

Drago suggests looking for an attorney who has specific experience with buying and selling businesses. Beyond that, the practice breaks down to commercial vs. retail vs. residential. Because the buyer or seller wants the attorney’s input to consider all the ramifications of a transaction before structuring the deal, Drago says the sooner consultations begin, the better. As in the hiring of most professionals, “ask people you trust,” Drago says. The sale of the family business, for example, is a “large part of a person’s life, there are a lot of emotions wrapped up in the transaction, so you want to make sure it’s done right and in your best interests.”

After the lawyer is hired, there are other issues to consider, like those involving money. Is a retainer or trust deposit required? Is settlement an attractive option? That depends on the stakes that can range all the way up to what are known as “bet the company” cases.

The Lawyer’s Headache

“In my experience, any litigation can be stressful,” says Kouns. “But you try and work through those moments and reach a mutually beneficial result” for both client and attorney.

The fact is, Kouns adds, many would “prefer not to need lawyers, and the reason lawyers have a bad rep is that people use lawyers in the worst of times. They’ve either been wronged by somebody and they have to spend money to get their money or property back, or they have wronged someone else and they have to spend money defending themselves, or they’re accused of wronging somebody and they have to spend money to prove they didn’t. So, all of those scenarios are uncomfortable and somewhat unpopular and lawyers are associated with all of them.”

Meanwhile, the client needs to hang in there. “Don’t be intimidated,” Drago says. “There shouldn’t be a mystery as to what the attorney is doing, about how much will it cost and what are likely outcomes. If they can’t tell you that in plain English, you might want to question how effective they’re going to be in doing the task at hand.”