Whether you are buying a bigger home, filing for divorce, or preparing a will, you need a good lawyer to help you negotiate the complex provisions of the law. But hiring the right attorney can be quite a task, especially because you need to be able to trust this person enough to confide your problems and dilemmas in him. Naturally, interviewing the first five names in the yellow pages of the telephone directory is not the right way to go about it.

A better way instead is to talk to your family and friends who have gone through similar situation and ask them for an attorneys referral. If you have prior experience with attorneys, you could ask them if they can give you legal assistance. If they do not have the expertise to handle your case, ask them for other attorneys referrals. When a practicing lawyer recommends a professional from his fraternity, you can be sure that you have a good attorneys referral at hand. Another good option is to contact the local state bar associations and enquire if they sponsor lawyer referral programs. Most often they can refer you to an attorney with the expertise required. Now determine your parameters for selecting one attorney over another. Ideally, start with the demographics.

Would you be more comfortable with a male or female attorney? How old? Then move onto other specifics, such as how do they prefer to charge for their services, by the hour or a flat fee? Will you need to pay for their phone calls and travel on your case? These are important questions. Try to prepare an in-depth questionnaire to get a perfect picture of what you expect from your attorney. This exercise will also help you put together a short list of candidates that you would like to call. Next, meet with a few attorneys to get an idea of how they would approach your case. Try to get as many answers to your questions as possible. Also, find out how experienced they are. Have they handled similar cases in the recent past? Check if they are willing to provide you with references to clients who you can call. These calls should help you gauge if the clients were happy with their services.

If you don't have the time for going through the whole rigmarole, try using an attorneys referral service. It's a quick and easy way to locate an attorney who meets your specific needs.