Business Attorney – One of your greatest fears as a small business owner is definitely being sued. No matter how carefully you run your firm, employing the wrong person or making a bad business deal might come back to bite you.
Investing time and resources now in choosing a small business attorney is the greatest approach to hedge your bets against potential legal issues. A qualified business attorney acts as a partner to your company and can help you get through some of the most difficult periods. They can also help you with any legal queries you have or legal services you need, such as creating agreements, raising funds, or dealing with employment issues, such as lawsuits.
After all, nearly 20 million civil claims are filed in American courts each year. [1] More over half of the lawsuits involve business-related contract or employment conflicts. The cost of defending a lawsuit might go into the thousands of dollars, crippling a small business.
The good news is that hiring a business attorney doesn’t have to break the bank, and it can save you money in the long run by preventing you from getting into costly legal issues. With that in mind, let’s talk about how to recognize when you need a business attorney, how to identify and select the best one, and how to save money.
Step 1: Determine why you require the services of a small business attorney.
Before you need a company lawyer, it’s advisable to hire one. Having said that, there are a few common scenarios in which startups and small enterprises should hire a business lawyer:
Choosing a business entity has an impact on your company’s future growth potential. A C-crop is the greatest option, for example, if you want to raise venture financing. A small business lawyer can help you weigh the advantages and disadvantages of various business formations and choose which is best for your organization.
Raising funds: It’s a good idea to hire a business attorney to assist you prepare term sheets and handle securities rules while raising venture financing and selling shares to investors.
Creating founding agreements: If you’re starting a firm with partners, defining each partner’s rights and responsibilities from the beginning will help you avoid future conflicts. Both partnership agreements and company bylaws can be drafted with the help of a small business lawyer.
Contract review: Businesses expand by entering into agreements with other businesses or clients. An attorney can assist you in negotiating beneficial contracts and ensuring that you are aware of all the details.
Dealing with personnel issues: As a company’s workforce increases, business attorneys are frequently called in to assist with labor law compliance and wrongful termination claims.
Obtaining IP protection: Obtaining a trademark or patent might be critical to a company’s future success in the tech, health, or research industries. Business attorneys who specialize in intellectual property, often known as trademark lawyers, can assist you in protecting your company’s creations.
Along with these more usual concerns, an event that occurred before to the commencement of the firm might sometimes come back to haunt you. Zach Hendrix, the co-founder of GreenPal, had a similar experience.
“I vividly recall the events of that day. We received a packet of documents in the mail on a Monday. My company’s cofounder was being sued for breaching a noncompete agreement he signed… before he started working for us. Over the course of the year, he battled the problem and was forced to sell his company’s shares. One thing I learnt from that experience is that you should hire a lawyer before you are sued. It’s not a question of if, but when you’ll be sued as a small business owner.
Therefore, even if you don’t think you’ll need a business attorney right away when you start your company, it’s a good idea to look into different local small business lawyers so that if you do, you’ll have someone (or a few) in mind.
However, many corporate attorneys specialise in a particular practise area, and others are “generalists” who can assist you with a variety of legal issues. Both of these options have advantages and disadvantages (which we’ll go over in more detail below), and the type of small business lawyer you need will ultimately be determined by the circumstances of your firm.
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Step 2: Use your network or legal directories to find local business attorneys.
Whether you’re looking for a small business attorney before you need one or require legal assistance for a specific scenario, there are a few best practises you can follow to locate the perfect lawyer for your company.
Having said that, choosing a small business lawyer is similar to looking for a business lender, accountant, or your next employee in certain aspects. It’s a good idea to compare several possibilities. We recommend visiting with a few different attorneys and then selecting the one that is the best fit for your company.
Your personal or professional network is one of the finest places to look for possible business attorneys in your area. A referral from a trustworthy friend or family member, or a business owner in the same field, can be extremely helpful, especially if they’re dealing with the same legal issues as you. You might also ask a company expert you already work with for a reference, such as your bookkeeper or accountant.
Doug Bradley, the owner of Inland Empire Lawyers, offers the following tips:
“Getting a referral is one of my primary principles for vetting a small company lawyer.” A personal referral from another business owner may sound old-fashioned, but it can help you discover the perfect counsel for your case quickly. It’s likely that the person who referred you was dealing with similar issues in their own company, and they laid a lot of the groundwork for you.”
You can also look for local business attorneys using online legal directories. Lawyer bar associations in many states have an up-to-date list of licenced attorneys in the area, which can be sorted by the lawyer’s practise area (example from Washington shown above). Additionally, both U.S. News and Best Lawyers provide curated attorney lists, however these attorneys are often employed by huge, expensive corporate law firms.
Nance L. Schick of The Law Studio of Nance L. Schick suggests turning to “the Small Business Administration and other small business organisations, such as New York City Business Solutions, your local chamber of commerce, and SCORE, [who] often have relationships with attorneys who have experience working with small businesses” to find a local attorney with a business specialisation.
Legal help sites like Avvo, Rocket Lawyer, and LegalZoom, on the other hand, may be very beneficial resources for hiring a business attorney. These websites offer a larger selection of attorney listings as well as professional evaluations. While it’s critical to do your homework and thoroughly research any small business lawyer you come across, you should also be weary of putting too much faith in online evaluations. Not all of these sites need reviews from confirmed clients, and there’s frequently no information concerning the legal issue that the customer was dealing with.
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Step 3: Ask the Right Questions to Compare Small Business Attorneys
After locating a few business attorneys, the next step is to meet with each of them. To meet with potential clients, most lawyers provide free half-hour or one-hour consultations. Without committing, a consultation is a smart approach to discover if a small company lawyer is a suitable fit.
You should aim to schedule an in-person session whenever possible. A face-to-face meeting indicates that the lawyer values client relationships and is prepared to make time for you. You’ll also be able to get a better sense of a possible attorney’s personality by meeting with them in person, which will help you decide if you believe you’ll get along.
You can ask the following questions during the session to help you identify the finest business attorney for your company:
What is your background when it comes to working with small businesses?
From a cost aspect, a business attorney’s experience working with small enterprises is critical. A lawyer who works with Fortune 500 companies on a regular basis will most likely charge an hourly rate to match. They may also prefer more litigious techniques of resolving a problem over more cost-effective dispute resolution approaches.
Lawyers are unable to discuss prior clients in detail with you because to confidentiality concerns, but they should be able to state something along the lines of “25 percent of my clients are businesses with less than 20 employees.”
