Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: [C-L]lawyer selection

[Jeanne Goodman (jeannegoodman]

Greetings Stephanie and welcome to the list.

I'm sure Diane Simpson will read your message and she'll probably want to respond, however she may be too modest to tell all. <s>

We developed a task force (temporary committee) who gathered the names of lawyers, sought references and interviewed lawyers.  They found an incredible lawyer who has agreed to work for us at a fixed price for an incredible price. I still can't believe how well they did. The guy is fantastic.

Anyway, they reported back their findings to the group, made a recommendation and the group approved him as our lawyer.

That is what I would recommend for your group.

Jeanne Goodman
Jamaica Plain Cohousing, Boston, MA
http://www.jpcohousing.org

Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 22:40:47 -0400
Subject: [C-L]lawyer selection
_Reply-to: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org

Hi!

 

I'm new to the list serve and I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Stephanie Hurley and I'm a member of Northstar Cohousing, which is a group of 5 families trying to start a cohousing community in the Peterborough, NH area. We are presently working through a boilerplate LLC and will soon be needing a lawyer to advise us on it. Therefore, we are beginning our search for a lawyer and I am soliciting advice from the listserve. By the way, I did spend at least an hour searching for previous discussions about this and didn't find any. Maybe I was looking in the wrong place, so I'll also welcome help in how to properly search for specific information.

 

The first question I have is about how important it is for the general group to be involved in the final stage of interviews with lawyers? My fellow committee members don't want to make the process any more complicated than it needs to be and wonder whether it would be adequate for the committee to make the decision. I feel that we should get a better feeling for how the lawyer will be working with a group, so should put him/her in that situation immediately and see how he/she handles it.

 

We also don't want to have to pay lots of money just to interview lawyers. Have other groups found that lawyers will do this without pay, in hopes of getting our business?

 

Finally, do you have any really great questions to ask the lawyers? We already have come up with a basic list (area of expertise, knowledge of local zoning, cluster development, consensus, cohousing and cost).

 

Do any of you have examples of difficult legal problems that were encountered that we could share with a lawyer to see how he/she might suggest handling it?

 

Any legal advice or "stories" would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,
Stephanie Hurley
<shurley [at] monad.net>
57 Union Street
Peterborough, NH 03458
603-924-4230

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