Finding Attorney

[Teddy]

I'm relocating and looking for an attorney in my new city who will be familiar with city laws as well.

I know to search for someone who specializes in First Amendment law, but is there a sub-category that I should be looking for?

For instance, I found a firm that was listed as having 80% of their work is in first amendment cases. When I look at their lawyers, they have sub-categories like: Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation, taxation, corporate, intellectual property, litigation.

Is this a case where the listing was inaccurate? Or, is there a subcategory ("corporate"??) that I should look for?

[basschick]

unless you're lucky about your new city and what attorneys are already there, most likely you'll be working with 2 attorneys - an adult attorney and one familiar with your city's laws - or else paying an adult attorney to do research into state laws for you. i tend to mistrust non-adult attorneys about stuff like this since so many of my friends have gotten wrong information from attorneys outside the industry.

[rawTOP]

Speaking of finding attorneys and how ones in the industry are better than ones out of the industry - can anyone recommend an adult lawyer who practices in NY state?

[kevinblj]

I believe that Basschick is correct. I ended up with Two different Attorney's to get the knowledge covered. They actually both referred the other. I couldn't be more pleased with their representation.

[AlexManifestMan]

Basschick is right on. You will certainly and should have two. Local laws vary widely and regardless of how astute an adult attorney may be, the local tax and contract laws will vary. So find a good adult attorney and then a good local one to review everything the adult attorney provides. Then get to work on a proper CPA.

While it won't be cheap, it is well worth doing.

[gaybucks_chip]

For instance, I found a firm that was listed as having 80% of their work is in first amendment cases. When I look at their lawyers, they have sub-categories like: Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation, taxation, corporate, intellectual property, litigation.


If all of the attorneys claim specialty in things like Employee Benefits and Exec Compensation, and not First Amendment, then the firm doesn't really specialize in First Amendment.

There's a guy in LA whom I won't mention by name that *claims* to represent practically every major company in the industry and have a ton of experience in adult and entertainment in general, and claims to have a bunch of attorneys working for him. Only problem is, nobody's ever heard of him, his name doesn't come up related to any adult-related cases (except for one), and his Martindale listing shows that he's a sole practitioner.

So even though attorneys are supposed to advertise honestly, don't assume they all do.

I agree with Patti's suggestion... get somebody local who is familar with zoning issues if you're concerned about that aspect of your business, and get somebody really knowledgeable about adult (meaning, somebody that is at least somewhat known in the industry) to handle the adult-related issues such as 2257 and First Amendment, who will probably not be local. There are plenty of good guys around... we've used Chadknowslaw for several years and I couldn't recommend anyone more highly for a variety of reasons... but there are plenty of other good ones as well.

[Teddy]

Oh! I can have a first amendment lawyer not in my city and deal with another lawyer locally. That kind of makes things easier!

[basschick]

it does make it easier, and all the first amendment attorneys i've talked to are willing to do phone consultations, so life is good :)