Your lawyer is a repository of your trust and confidence, your most sensitive information, and your dreams and desires. While most lawyers are good, honest and ethical people, not all have the same business ethic. And not all are equally skilled at all tasks. When forming a relationship with any financial or legal professional, but especially an attorney, consider the following.

The first question is whether your lawyer is relationship oriented. Simply put, do you get along? If you can't abide the presence of your attorney, you won't be comfortable following his or her advice. This healthy relationship factor is vital in dealing with someone who has access to your most confidential and privileged information. This is hard to quantify, but it's important to be honest with ourselves and proceed accordingly.

Second, do you trust him or her personally? Does your lawyer inspire trust, or do you question whether you can safely repose your confidences in him or her? Sometimes the "gut feeling" is all the warning we get, and it's important not to ignore it.

The fact that you don't trust a professional doesn't necessarily mean he or she isn't trustworthy. It might just mean he or she is too distracted, or that your personalities clash. But at times, that deep-seated unease is a harbinger of disaster.

Third, and working hand in hand with the personability factor and trust, is simple respect and dignity. Any professional – any businessperson, in fact – can be tempted to see you as a potential means of income rather than as an individual who has been entrusted into his or her care for him or her to serve.

Does your lawyer treat you as a unique person who has a right to be treated with respect and dignity? Or are you "the P. I. case in the conference room" or "the living trust in the waiting room"? If you are an object in the eyes of your lawyer, he or she will be tempted to use you, not serve you.

Just having a relationship based on trust, dignity and respect is not enough. Vital in your making a choice of a lawyer is the sense of security that comes from knowing that your lawyer is fully competent in the specific area of the law in which you have a need. If your lawyer can't explain clearly the reasons for his or her advice and the ways it will benefit you, you would naturally wonder whether he or she is acting knowledgeably and in your best interests.