Just wondering where people have gone to get good legal advice on money matters? How did you find the people you deal with?

In my case, I worked for a tax attorney while in college and he told me that the best way to find a good tax attorney if you are unfortunate enough to need one, is to try to get someone who used to work for the IRS or who you know has friends who do. Experience from the other side of the fence is much more valuable than "book learning" only, because that person understands how that entity operates.

As for a tax accountant, often a tax attorney prepares returns as well, or has an associate who does.

Are there other things that anyone knows of to look for? I'm just starting to get into stock and stuff like that and don't know if a financial advisor necessarily knows much about the legal aspects when it's not a tax-related legal issue. I'll admit it - I don't have a clue about what to look for or how to find someone to provide any legal advice I might need as I get into things and maybe even incorporate. Anyone have any experience with this?

Incorporating is something that a tax accountant should be able to do for you. As for as stock advice, that's totally separate. A certified financial adviser is always a good choice. I subscribe to Forbes and I usually find that pretty helpful and interesting reading material.

As far as finding a good attorney, I have multiple firms that I deal with. They all specialize in different things. The best way to find one is to find somebody who is in your situation or business, and ask them for a recommendation. Most people will have no problem recommending their attorney if they are happy with them. Make sure to ask somebody you respect though, because a stranger's recommendation doesn't really mean as much, at least for me it doesn't.

I see that Forbes and The Motley Fool both have online newsletters you can subscribe to for free. Do you know anything about these? Are they worth looking at or are they just "teasers" that try to get you to subscribe by only giving you a small part of the story?

I'm a real novice here and not yet ready to make any investments ... just found the advice you gave Island Guy useful and wondered about the online newsletters, as I keep getting emails asking me to sign up for them. Since you mentioned Forbes, didn't know if you are a "full meal deal" subscriber or not. If so, in your opinion, is it worth it to subscribe to something like that in terms of the payback in advice you've gotten through reading what they send?

Motley Fool's newsletter is pretty good from what I've read so far. I am currently a subscriber, and enjoy reading it every few days when it comes.

As for Forbes, I don't get their newsletter, but I do get the printed magazine, which I'm sure is better.. I would definitely recommend it.

I subscribe to Forbes also and have found it very interesting and informative reading. I also get The Motley Fool's online newsletter, but usually just skim it. I think they've made some good picks in the past, but it seems they're always suggesting stocks I'd never ordinarily consider, so their advice appears risky (don't know if it is, as I don't know their long-term success ratio).

I've got a line on a good financial advisor who lives on the mainland, so I'm going to give him a try for some advice on what to do with the money I have to invest with right now (hopefully it'll get to be a bigger pot o' gold in time), but am still going to do some day trading on my own with some "mad money". If I turn out to totally suck at day trading (even though I've been reading up a lot), I'll have to turn more conservative.

I'd start small and easy softwarewiz. It sounds like you don't have a lot of money to play the market with right now (no offense meant), so unless you want to go out in a blaze of glory, I'd play it pretty conservative, but that's just IMHO. If you can get into the right mutual fund, you'd be surprised how quickly you can make such real money even if you don't have a lot to start with and then you can start getting riskier.

Have either of you (or anyone else reading this thread) ever followed a lead from Motley Fool and come up a winner? I agree with you, IslandGuy, that the online reports I receive seem to go for some pretty risky sounding stuff, but yet they are always talking about how successful they've been in the past.

Yeah, you're right, I've got little to lose right now, so won't be taking any risk just yet .... in fact, gotta put together a little slush fund to even get started ... but was hoping to learn from some experienced traders on who they consider gives the best advice overall, even just in terms of completeness of coverage of all aspects of the stock/fund in question, projections, past performance, etc.

Has anyone followed a Motley Fool tip and reaped the rewards? Probably just me, but with a name like Motley Fool, you've gotta be doing something right

Motley Fool is a joke. I read a book of theirs wihen I first got into the financial markets and I'm not too sure I learned anything.