When starting your business, you’ll hopefully have a large support team surrounding you. However, have you thought about your legal support team to ensure your business can operate in a legal and ethical way? While other members of your support system may offer informal advice regarding your business, it’s wise to hire an Orlando business attorney like Thomas R. Peppler to cover your bases and ensure your business has a solid legal standing from the very beginning. Below, we discuss the top reasons you should consider hiring a business lawyer when starting your small business.
Build a Solid Foundation
An Orlando business lawyer can ensure your business is structured legally from the start. We can help you choose the correct business entity for your desired business, which will allow you to grow your business and avoid unnecessary tax burdens. Some of the most common legal entities we can help you set up include:
Limited Liability Company (LLC)
LLCs are one of the most common business structures for small business owners. These business entities allow business owners to legally separate their business from their personal assets, which provides additional protection for their personal possessions in case of a lawsuit. We can help you set up the legal structures to ensure your business and personal assets remain separate.
Partnership
When you have several business partners, it’s important to manage expectations and have a plan for how the partners will share business gains and losses. Our Orlando business attorney can provide a plan and draft a partnership agreement to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Corporation
A business lawyer can help you with the transition to making your business public and ensure your business is ready to scale.
Create Legally Binding Contracts
When you’re starting a business, the focus is often on getting tasks done rather than formalizing every transaction with a contract. However, it’s crucial to have a contract in place for every new business relationship to define roles and expectations clearly. Every business needs various business contracts, including those for partnerships, employees, board of directors, vendors, independent contractors, and customers. Additionally, your website should feature a privacy policy, legal terms, and service agreements. These contracts are vital for solidifying your working relationships with everyone involved in your business operations. To ensure these agreements are legally sound and beneficial for your business, it’s essential to have them developed by an experienced Orlando business attorney.
Protect Business Assets
Don’t let another business profit from your ideas! Protecting your business’ products and intellectual property, like trademarks, logos, patents, and copyrights, is vital. Without these protections, you risk unauthorized use of your business’s name, logo, or marketing by competitors. You’ll also want to protect your business’s physical assets to ensure competitors or former employees don’t share trade secrets or start competing businesses using your proprietary formulas and techniques. Protecting these assets can be done through a number of legal methods, including creating non-disclosure agreements, enforceable non-competes, and other confidentiality agreements.
Handle Business Disputes
One of the most important roles your business lawyer has is handling disputes. When business relationships don’t go as expected and conflicts arise, your Orlando business attorney is there to protect your rights and the business’s future. Your business will inevitably face disputes and disagreements throughout its lifetime, but it’s essential to be prepared to handle these disputes effectively. Some of the most common business disputes your lawyer can assist with include:
Severance Agreements
A severance agreement outlines the compensation an employee receives upon leaving a company, typically due to layoffs or restructuring, rather than performance. Having a comprehensive and specific severance agreement will ensure both parties understand the terms and help the employee move on amicably.
Wrongful Termination Claims
Florida is an “at-will” work state, which means employers can terminate employees for any reason at any time. However, a wrongful termination lawsuit alleges that an employee’s dismissal was unjust or illegal. A knowledgeable attorney can assess whether a former employee was indeed wrongfully terminated. Examples of unlawful termination include discrimination, breach of contract, and workplace rights violations.
Wage Disputes
Disputes over compensation are one of the most common forms of legal disputes your business may face. For instance, an employee may believe they are being paid an unequal wage compared to other employees based on discrimination. Another common wage dispute is when a soon-to-be-shut-down business fails to pay its employees on time. While state law grants business owners a reasonable period to issue payments, local ordinances dictate the amount of time employers have to pay employees. If payment occurs after this timeframe, employees can file to recover their missing wages.
Breach of Contract
Breaches of contract occur when one party fails to adhere to the terms of a previous agreement. Your Orlando business attorney can assess whether a breach has occurred in a particular agreement and help you seek compensation for related damages.
Trusted Advisor
Your business lawyer can offer advice about the legal implications when you’re ready to reach milestones in your business, whether you’re looking to scale or add a business partner. Your attorney can advocate for your business and provide a roadmap to scale and grow your business ethically and legally as you grow.
Planning for the Future
Business attorneys who also provide estate planning services, like our team at Peppler Law, P.A., can help you build a business legacy that will outlive you. Your business lawyer can help you create estate planning documents related to your business, such as buy-sell agreements, including business considerations in your will, and succession planning. Including your business in your estate plan allows it to continue to grow and thrive once you step down or are ready to pass on the business to the next generation.
Peppler Law, P.A.: Orlando Business Attorney
Legal issues facing businesses today are complicated. Don’t let the investment you’ve made into your business go to waste by not having a solid legal foundation. Having an experienced business attorney can ensure your business is set up for success in every aspect and will be able to face legal challenges along the way. Contact our team at Peppler Law for a free consultation to learn more!
