This study concerns Dutch small and medium-sized companies (MKB), the companies with at most 99 employees who jointly make up little over 99% of the companies in the Netherlands. The difficulties experienced by these companies are the main focus of the investigation. The research questions were: 1 What is the nature and frequency of the problems experienced by small and medium-sized companies? With whom are these companies experiencing these problems and how can the differences in the nature and frequency between the companies be explained? 2 How do companies deal with problems and which legal assistance providers do they engage in the process? How can the differences between companies be explained in this context? 3 How do companies end their problems and how do they assess the performance of the legal assistance providers engaged by them? Two surveys were used to answer these research questions.