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You may need a lawyer for any number of reasons - life event changes, such as getting married or buying a home, or maybe you're facing a personal crisis. It can be hard to figure out where to look and how to find a lawyer. Personal references or local reputations, while helpful, may not deliver the right lawyer for YOUR legal issue. With all the information that's available, and the many ways to look for a lawyer, it can be overwhelming to start your search. That's where lawyer ratings can an important tool and resource. You'll find two types of lawyer ratings on Lawyers.com.

Consumer Choices and Web-based Ratings and Reviews

Consumers increasingly rely on Web-based ratings and reviews when making purchasing decisions for all kinds of products and services. More and more, you can find Web-based ratings and reviews for all kinds of professionals: doctors, financial advisors - even lawyers! The availability of online reviews grows every year along with the quality and availability of the feedback. Consumers are becoming more savvy and add their input to the collective knowledge base of reviews.

Turning to Web-based information just makes sense. If you buy a product or service online, small or large, you'll likely have a chance to review and rate the purchase and the provider online. It's also likely that you'll use Web-based reviews and ratings before you buy something online or head out to the store. Think about how important ratings and reviews are to the independent business people on your favorite Internet auction or e-commerce sites. Providing feedback as a consumer often leads to better services, consumer experiences and products.

Where Do Lawyer Ratings Fit into Your Search for a Lawyer?

You'll want to know all the information you can about your prospective lawyer before you decide which one to choose. This holistic view includes biographical information, facts about a lawyer and the lawyer's practice and reviews and ratings of that lawyer or law firm. You can make the best decision possible when you combine review and rating resources and professional credential information along with your personal experience and first-hand referrals from family and friends. Use these resources to arrive at your "short list" of candidates, speak with them personally and make your decision.

Lawyer Reviews and Ratings on Lawyers.com

On Lawyers.com, you can see two types of lawyer reviews and ratings when you look at a lawyer's profile information: Peer Review Ratings and Client Reviews:

• Peer Review Ratings give you insight into what other lawyers have to say about your prospective lawyer or law firm. Feedback from lawyers about other lawyers will include their views on qualities such as a lawyer's skills, qualifications, experience and ethics
• Client Reviews give you the perspective from the other side: input from a lawyer's clients. These reviews can give you a client-to-potential client view of what someone's experience with a given lawyer was like. Feedback from previous clients will include their views on service and relationship components such as responsiveness, quality of service and value for money. You can be a part of the process, too, by completing reviews of lawyers with whom you've worked. Your review will be valued by other consumers. Moreover, Client Reviews help lawyers provide even better services and experiences. The Client Review process is easy to use, your personal information remains confidential and third-party services and other validation methods are used to verify reviews and maintain quality assurance of the process

Information from both types of reviews, which are displayed to be easily understood, creates the full view you need to make your choice.

Make Your Decision Easier with Lawyers.com

More than most employees, those in R&D work autonomously. This makes sense: They often know more about their field of expertise than do many company executives. R&D employees also often work in ways that make measuring individual performance and motivation tricky. But while difficult to understand, knowing what motivates an R&D workforce is an essential concern for companies looking to be at the forefront of innovation.

In fact, new research suggests ways to find the best employees in this field, advancing the idea that you shouldn’t look for employees motivated by job security but for those inspired by intellectual challenges. Henry Sauermann, an assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Wesley M. Cohen, a professor at Duke University, analyzed survey data from more than 11,000 scientists and engineers in various industries. Among topics the survey covered was the importance the scientists and engineers placed on eight different work benefits: salary, fringe benefits, job security, intellectual challenges, independence, advancement opportunities, responsibilities and contributions to society.

Those who responded that intellectual challenges were an important aspect of their jobs spent more hours at work and produced more patent applications. In contrast, those who ranked job security as important tended to produce fewer patent applications.

Sauermann and Cohen offer several ideas about the relationships they found between motives and productivity. They hypothesize that finding challenges invigorating may lead scientists and engineers to select more demanding and innovative projects. The authors also suggest that employees’ underlying motivations may affect their creative thinking. Those intrinsically motivated by challenges may find they think better when challenged -- they may find their attention heightened and recall more, for instance -- while those more extrinsically motivated, concerned about job security, may find their creativity stifled, their exploratory way of thinking less invigorated.

This article is adapted from “Motivated to Innovate,” by Martha E. Mangelsdorf, which appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review. The complete article is available at http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/.