That's particularly true of law, where one misstep could put you on the wrong side of a judgment. Find out the scope of the practice, whether your current needs are a good fit either for the individual lawyer or the firm. It's not that a patent attorney can't write up a good will, but you might have regrets when someday you discover what years of practicing intellectual property law have done to his skills as an estate-planning attorney.

If a lawyer has several specialties, ask how her workload is divided between those areas of the law. A lawyer might do real estate contracts and estate planning, for example, but her business may be heavily weighted toward the former; if you come in with a complex estate situation, she may not have the depth of experience you want, even though estate planning is supposed to be one of her specialties.