Use the lawyer to keep you out of trouble. Let him see your contracts and the papers and agreements pertaining to leases, sales, purchases, royalties, and all documents which may from their nature be brought into court as evidence. These things are the ones on which to take the lawyer's advice.
When you are pushed into a corner and must fight, then get the best lawyer, for in a fight in court, like a fight in the prize ring, the best trained and equipped man usually wins.
It's more often the best lawyer wins than the best side of the case.
Legal struggles seldom pay. Law suits take up time and money, and the result, even if in your favor, seldom offsets the time, money and worry you have expended.
The good lawyer keeps you from fighting. Many lawyers, however, are grafters, and they advise fight, for they win whether you do or not.
Settle disputes even if you are imposed on. There is little satisfaction in getting a judgment for one hundred dollars, when your lawyers fees are fifty dollars and you have expended two hundred dollars' worth of time and worry over the case.
Ask your lawyer's advice on the legal status of your operations, and not on business propositions.
If you are a success in business that is an evidence, generally speaking, that your judgment is good.
You can get all the advice you want for nothing. If you state a case and lay out a proposed plan, and then ask your friends' advice on the subject, you can safely count that nine out of ten will say that your proposition is all right as outlined by you.
These friends figure that you have given the plan much thought and study, and it is much simpler for them to coincide with your opinion than to take an opposite view.