RE: How to find professional help
From: Rob Sandelin (robsanmicrosoft.com)
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 94 14:45 CDT
Steve Farley  asked:  How did you find your professional help?

To find our first attorney Sharingwood talked with several communities  
and environmental groups in the area (Puget Sound is home to a number 
of both).  Our second attorney we needed a condominium attorney and so 
we asked our first attorney, and a couple other lawyers who was the 
best condominium attorney.  All of them gave us the same reference.  
Our current attorney was recommended by a couple other communities.  
None of these attorneys were terrifically interested or supportive of 
cohousing, but all of them did the job we wanted them to do.  Finding 
an attorney who is supportive of cohousing is probably less important 
than finding one who is good at the law they practice.  There are a 
number of non-profits in our area who have used attorneys who have been 
politically correct, but horrible attorneys.  There is one attorney in 
particular who is a well known supporter of non-profits and social 
causes but who is a very poor attorney.

One mistake we made recently with some legal stuff is that we didn't 
clearly communicate what our overall goal was and so we wasted some 
time and money doing revisions because the specifics didn't meet our 
overall goals.

Architects.   We collected a whole host of names of architects 
(cohousing is a trendy thing for an architect to have on her/his 
resume) and then interviewed five of them.  We chose one who was a good 
group facilitator and who had lived in a social housing situation (she 
was also the only woman and that also was a factor).  Actually we are 
about to gear up to do that again.  Out process will be the same, even 
though we will looking for a different skill set. (site design rather 
than building design)

Engineers.  We put out a proposal to a dozen engineering firms in our 
County  and got seven bids. We didn't take the lowest bidder and we 
chose based on some comments the field people made which showed a 
sensitivity and understanding of environmental values. (If you move 
this road that way you could save all those trees....)  I would advise 
hiring an engineering firm which does lots of business, if not resides, 
in the County in which the permits will come from.  The engineering 
stuff like water runoff, roads, sewers, etc.  is what the permit people 
will care a lot about.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood

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