Finding the right attorney

[William M.]

Hey everyone, I have a question. After years of learning I'm ready to start taking action wholesaling. I thought my first step should be to find an attorney willing to do assignments and simultaneous closes and also get the proper legal documents I need. I did a search for local real estate closing attorney and only found three locally. One has a disconnected number, one is not even based out often state but advertises for my area and the third was a firm that practiced many different areas including real estate. I called the third and said "I need some legal advice for a few real estate investing strategies I would like to do. I basically need an attorney to help me with the legal aspect of the transaction." The lady on the phone sounded confused and said" investing? We help people buy and sell houses but we don't do anything for investors. You want an investor attorney." She then gave me a number to an attorney reference center. I called them and said the same thing and they told me I need a real estate attorney then gave me the number to the New York bar assotiation.
What am I doing wrong? I can't find a local closing attorney to work with.

[Jeff S.]

I don’t think you want a lawyer yet, William Monroe. I suggest you need other real estate professionals who do what you intend to do, who will give you a referral. Otherwise, it’s just the luck of the draw. Don’t use a phonebook and hope to get lucky. You want referrals from those that have personal experience with the professionals they recommend.

Without your location it’s hard to help, but there must be some real estate organizations in your area. Have you checked meetup.com, spoken to RE agents, mortgage brokers, or title companies? How about your prospective buyers? Surely they’ve done deals with competent attorneys they could recommend or at least know of professional organizations you could attend.

In general, if you are a real estate investor, you want your professionals (attorney, CPA, agents, etc.) to be real estate investors. To the degree possible, they should be knowledgeable in your field. The last thing you want is to have to educate your attorney in “tactics or RE Investing,” as suggested above.

Depending upon your needs, there are specialties within each field. I use an attorney who focuses on lending and securities law. That’s all he does. Personally, he’s a note investor as well and fully understands my needs and the surrounding law. Similar to John Jackson, I started out with someone who called himself a real estate attorney and he turned out to be a disaster. Part of the problem is that when you’re starting out, you don’t know what you don’t know, so it’s best to get a personal reference from someone who does.

Jeff