4 Ways That Lawyers Can Help Businesses
When starting up a new business venture, there is a lot to consider. In particular, the legal documentation that is required to be completed and the legal processes that need to be followed. In addition, how a business is financed, and how its product or service is marketed. This article will look at all the different ways that a lawyer can help a business, through start-up, and then longer term. Online there are companies such as cohenschneider.com, who can help.
Counselling
There are lawyers out there who can counsel clients on business start-up as well as see them through all that needs to be done legally to form a business. This gives piece of mind and passes on a wealth of previously learned experienced to anyone entering business for the first time. Or indeed changing to a different type of business to move with the times.
Documentation
Various legal documents are required to form a US company and then to run it. These can all be prepared by a good lawyer who knows the intricacies of corporate law. With guidance as mentioned above they can talk through these documents with clients so that they are completed fully and in accordance with required laws in respect of companies. Not only are documents required to start-up and form a business but also are required to be kept in the running of a business.
To form a company:
For a Business Corporation – a Certificate of Incorporation or Articles of Incorporation
For a Limited Liability Company (LLC) – Articles of Formation or Articles of Organization
To govern a company:
For a Business Corporation – Organizational Minutes and bylaws (shareholder agreement optional)
For a Limited Liability Company (LLC) – an Operating Agreement
Relating to ownership:
For a Business Corporation – a share certificate for each individual shareholder
For a Limited Liability Company (LLC) – a member certificate for each member
As a tax requirement in both cases, an IRS Form SS4 (Application for Employer Identification Number) is required.
In respect of due diligence, Federal Law will prohibit certain nationals such as Cubans, Iranians, and North Koreans, for instance, from owning US assets, which include those of US companies.
Best Practices
Lawyers, apart from helping with legal documents, will also help clients to adopt best practice within their business. This is something that you want so that things run smoothly and to ensure that everything is being recorded accurately and in a timely manner. It is a way of working that should assimilate down from those at the top to the staff at the very bottom of any company.
Contracts and Legal Disputes
Lawyers are invaluable to a business when it comes to forming watertight contracts with other companies. They are experienced in interpreting the small print that will mean whether the contract is in your favour or more beneficial to the other party. They will help to draw your contracts up as well as check those others send you to sign. In addition, if there is a legal dispute with anyone, perhaps a client who will just not pay, then the lawyers are on hand to follow up on that debt and take it to court on your behalf. Legal advice is continual, and so it does not stop once a business is incorporated.
In conclusion, a lawyer can counsel business owners prior to starting up a business and during the running of their business. It is a service to be taken advantage of. Then, lawyers are perfectly poised to guide you through all the legal documentation required for start-up and what is needed to run a business in accordance with those regulating it. Best practices can be talked through with lawyers to stand a business in good stead. Should any contracts need drawing up or checking in greater legal detail, then lawyers know what to look for in the small print that others hope you will miss to see. If companies and individuals that you deal with think that they can get away without paying, or try to steal your ideas, then lawyers are there to help with that, too. So, why not contact a lawyer and see just how much they can help with your business.