A recession has changed the business side of law.

"…you are really hiring an individual lawyer. ‘Make sure that the chemistry works…ask about the attorney’s experience and the law firm’s prior cases in that area of law. Ask for an estimate of what the costs are likely to be.’" reports James Flanigan, of the NY Times, pursuant to an interview with Brian Davidoff, managing director of Los Angeles law firm Rutter Hobbs and Davidoff.

There is recognized to be a traditional distrust of lawyers by many entrepreneurs, says Sanford I. Millar, a Los Angeles tax attorney: "They see the lawyer as saying ‘no’ to daring business moves. THe truth is, lawyers are there to advise on what has been posible and not been possible in law. No business owner wants to be ignorant on that score."

Last fall, according to the NY Times article, page B6, December 30, 2010, "In the New Economy, Use New Strategies to Hire Law Firms", Concord Law School (Kaplan affiliated) is reported as recognizing that lawyering in small business practice needs some fine tuning, and thus began to offer a two year degree course in busines practice, focusing initially on comercial real estate and employee benefits.

The course "will teach about succesion issues anda bout taxation and protecting intellectual property" with the goal of helping lawyers offer small businesses the services they really need at a price they can afford, according to M. Ellen Murphy, director of the program.