4 Ways a Business Lawyer Can Support Your Startup
If you are starting a new business, you know the myriad of issues you must address—and how overwhelming it can feel. With so much to do, it’s easy to let some of your startup’s most vital legal components slip through the cracks.
You may not want to allocate money to hire a business lawyer when your business is just beginning to bring in money. However, this is the exact time you need to seek the advice of an experienced business lawyer. And, while it may be tempting to DIY your legal business documents using an online service, this can potentially place your new business at serious risk.
How Can a Business Lawyer Help My Startup?
There are many ways a business lawyer can significantly support your startup. Here are 4 ways specifically:
- Choosing the Best Business Structure – Forming your startup, including choosing the best business structure, is crucial. Your business structure affects everything, including your personal asset vulnerability, record-keeping type, and tax liability. You may choose a corporation, LLC (limited liability company), partnership, or sole proprietorship, and your business lawyer can give you a comprehensive overview of the pros and cons of each.
- Creating Solid Contracts and Agreements – A business can seem like an endless stream of contracts and agreements, yet each is a critical component of your startup. You will have contracts with partners, lenders, investors, clients, vendors, employees, contracts, and customers. Every startup should make sure its internal structure is solid and should have employment agreements, independent contractor agreements and most importantly, a company handbook. You must design legal agreements to protect you and your business. However, unless they are legally iron-clad, they are essentially useless. Pulling generic legal agreements from the Internet and filling in the blanks may seem like an excellent cost-cutting strategy. However, it can backfire in many ways, leaving you and your new business vulnerable.
- Protecting Intellectual Property – Protection of your intellectual property is crucial. Intellectual property is one of your company’s most valuable assets, yet few companies adequately protect this asset. Trademarking such things as your company’s name and website is essential to protecting your intellectual property. Intellectual property is protected through solid non-disclosure agreements, using digital rights management, thoroughly documenting discoveries, and creating strong access credentials. Your attorney can help record your discoveries and innovations as they occur, leaving you in a better position to prove legitimacy and ownership rights over your intellectual property, even if a leak occurs.
- Assisting with the Right Business Insurance – Your business insurance protects your assets from being wiped out by a single event or lawsuit. Your business structure and the level of assets will determine the type of insurance you require. Some of the most common business insurance types include employment practices, property, professional liability, umbrella, and general liability insurance.
An experienced business lawyer at John Park Law can help to protect your intellectual property, form a business structure that is best for you, create and review contracts, and assist with strategic business decisions.
What About Privacy and Startups?
Startup businesses should not forget about privacy in today’s digital age. A privacy policy on your website is crucial—and legally required in some states—if you “collect and maintain personally identifiable information.” Since personally identifiable information is broadly defined, you need a privacy policy even if your website visitors merely submit their email addresses to receive news and updates.
What About Nevada?
Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 603A requires all businesses to have a privacy policy. This policy must tell visitors:
- The type of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) collected
- The third parties that will share this PII
- A description of how a user can review and make changes to their PII
- Acknowledgment if you sell Nevada consumers PII information
- Request address where Nevada consumers can submit a request not to sell their PII information
- Description of the process you use to let users know of any Privacy Policy changes
- Information about any third parties that collect data (cookies)
- The effective date of your Privacy Policy
Your startup can face severe fines if your Privacy Policy includes only some, but not all, of this information.
How Can a Business Lawyer in Nevada Help?
An experienced Nevada business lawyer can help ensure you are represented when you have to take a client, vendor, or employee to court for violating an agreement—or that you are represented in the event you get taken to court.
When you have a knowledgeable business lawyer on your team, your startup receives risk management, networking, and strategic vision assistance from day one. Business lawyers are trained to spot potential problems long before you encounter them—and to protect against those problems.
Perhaps a clause in a “standard” employment contract has caused trouble for other clients. This knowledge and experience benefit you and your startup. And, while networking may not be something you think of with a business lawyer, consider that lawyers who specialize in startups know and work with accountants, investors, bankers, and other professionals who can benefit your startup.
In the end, of all the many things that are important to the success of your startup, having a strong business lawyer in your corner is one of the most important.
Contact A Nevada Business Lawyer
If you’re looking to get your startup business on the right track, we can help. The business attorneys at John Park Law work with companies in Nevada, California and Utah to help their businesses succeed at all levels.
We’ve got you covered – from drafting ironclad contracts to helping you structure your business. Call us at 702-857-7879 to speak with an experienced attorney at John Park Law.
John Park is a highly experienced attorney in estate planning, probate, business law and guardianship to help people organize the elements of their lives through careful estate planning and asset protection measures.