If you’re in the process of launching a start-up business, then you’ll likely want to consult an attorney for assistance.
Funds are typically tight in a start-up, but an initial investment in legal advice is well worth it. You can save yourself a lot of time and money by avoiding complications down the road.
There’s also a good chance that you don’t yet have the business knowledge to set your company up for success. A good lawyer can help protect your young business and ensure that there’s nothing you’re overlooking.
You might be needing more convincing to understand the need to find the best legal representation available for a start-up business, so we’ll go into more detail below.
Estimating Potential Liabilities.
One of the best things a lawyer can do for you is to estimate any potential liabilities that your company may face.
When you’re launching a start-up, there are many things you just won’t know without experience. You might infringe on another company’s copyrights or unknowingly break a law.
Even if you don’t know you’re breaking the law, you can still be held liable for it. This can get extremely pricey, something you certainly can’t afford as a start-up.
Furthermore, an attorney can take a good look at your business and determine what may cause an issue in the future.
Imagine that your start-up needs a building to conduct your business. You likely don’t have an excess of cash to rent a physical location, so you may opt for a cheaper building that’s in poor condition.
If this is the case, there may be issues with the building that need to be addressed. If something on your property causes an injury to someone you work with, then you might be responsible for a premises liability accident.
There’s just too much that you don’t know as a new business owner. A lawyer will give you invaluable information that will let you understand what you’re getting into and what to expect in the future.
Selecting the Right Insurance.
Another great benefit is that a lawyer can help you select relevant insurance.
There are many types of business insurance available. Some of these include coverage for vehicles, property, professional liability, workers’ compensation, business interruption, crime, and equipment breakdown.
Insurance can get extremely expensive, especially when you have multiple different policies. Some coverage isn’t relevant to your business and would be a waste of your money.
A lawyer can identify what coverage would benefit your start-up and is a good use of your money. Insurance can be critical to saving your start-up business should something go wrong, so it isn’t something to neglect.
Instead, you just need to be careful about what you pay for and make sure that it’s helpful. Without experience, a lawyer is your best bet for determining what is worth your money.
Properly Incorporating the Business.
An attorney is also essential for helping you seamlessly incorporate your business.
Business incorporation is what happens when you make your company official. It’s no longer just you and a partner operating anymore, but now a separate entity that you become an owner of.
With this comes an abundance of paperwork and legal requirements. You likely won’t know what this process fully entails.
A lawyer will know what you need to take care of and can expedite this process for you. Instead of navigating through a bunch of busywork, they’ll cut to the chase and take care of almost everything for you.
If you opt to incorporate without a lawyer’s help, then you can run into issues down the road due to something you missed out of ignorance.
Contracts With Vendors.
There’s also a great chance that your start-up will involve contracts.
This typically means that you’ll need to negotiate a deal with vendors for your supplies. What makes these deals legally binding is the contract that goes along with it.
Contracts are often long and confusing, which can make it easy to agree to something that isn’t in your favor. Alternatively, mistakes become common and this can make the deal fall apart in the future.
An attorney can look through your contracts and even help with negotiating them. They can verify that the terms are fair, there aren’t any loopholes, and that the contract will hold up in court.
Furthermore, a lawyer can ensure that there are insurance provisions in a contract. This will help protect you should anything go wrong with the vendor that disrupts your operations.
If you want to make your start-up sustainable, beginning with fair contracts is a crucial step toward ensuring success.
Handling Future Legal Disputes.
One final advantage of an attorney is knowing someone reputable to handle future legal disputes.
Even if you do your best to properly set your business up and strictly follow the law, there’s still a possibility that something will go wrong. Alternatively, someone may choose to sue your business and this can be terrifying.
If you begin looking for a lawyer after an issue arises, then it might already be a lost cause. This would mean that you didn’t use an attorney to incorporate your business or ensure that you have useful insurance.
As a result, there’s a great chance that there is something exploitable within your company. This can make it difficult to fight a case and protect your business from harm.
Alternatively, if you had a lawyer through the full process of incorporation, then your business is likely to be iron-clad. This also gives you someone that you can trust and turn to in the future.
Even better, this lawyer will already know the ins and outs of your business because they helped set it up. Because of this, it will be easier for them to handle legal disputes as they won’t need to spend time learning your business.
Finding a good attorney can be difficult and will surely take time. Investing this time during the initial stages of your start-up will set you up for success and will save time should you need one down the road.
Closing Thoughts.
Even though funds are limited for a start-up business, the fee for hiring an attorney is an excellent use of your money.
There are many things about your business that you won’t know without extensive experience. A lawyer will understand this and can help inform you about what you do need to take care of.
The main advantages of working with a lawyer while launching a start-up include estimation of potential liabilities, highlighting relevant insurance, proper incorporation of the business, negotiating contracts with vendors, and managing future legal disputes.
It’s great if your business never needs a lawyer, but this is extremely unlikely. Instead, you should protect your start-up by consulting one throughout the whole process of launching to mitigate any risks that you might face in the future.
