You should meet a friendly lawyer (perhaps an ex classmate who went to law school) and have them "show you the ropes". There's a ton of unnecessary crap that customers (err, "clients") ask for or could and should do themselves.
And there are places lawyers can help a lot (hint: typically not business decisions).
hijacking this to show off something my lawyer friend and I are working on (we’re in YC startup school now). we both agree with some of the comments in this thread. this is a lite landing page but we have mvp almost complete: https://thecaseyak.com/
It’s a ML backed plugin that helps injured people receive a data backed case estimate for a personal injury claim, and law firms receive leads with the data backed case value (it’s also available in Spanish and fully accessible).
We’re looking for beta testers right now - if anyone is in the PI law world and wants to try it out, let us know!
Businesses, of course, have to, but even there it's hard. How does one "shop around" for a lawyer? On what basis can I judge whether somebody is sufficiently smart, hard working, and experienced in the domains I will require?
If I had to do it every day, I'd learn through a series of mistakes. In fact, that's basically what I have done, on the few occasions I've needed a lawyer -- I'm pretty sure I've gotten poor-quality work, but even now I don't really know. I know that I'm not happy with the results in every case, but I have no idea if a different lawyer would have done better.
That has mostly left me really hoping I never need an attorney for my personal life. Which I will, some day -- and suspect my heirs will complain about my choice.