Venturing and managing a business is not easy. As a business owner, one has to deal with people such as employees, provide and maintain high customer service, business promotion, and so much more. Amid the noise, most business people have a tendency of letting the legal sides of the business slide, only to be circumscribed later.
Here are 3 common business legal mistakes you must avoid while starting a new business:
1. The First Mistake That Many New and Budding Entrepreneurs Make Is the Failure to Properly Form a Legal Business Entity
Perhaps one of the biggest legal mistakes you can make as a business owner especially when you are starting your business as a sole trader. This might be okay if you are self-employed and as a freelancer. Nevertheless, for any other type of business, not creating an entity can pose a disadvantage in this field. Organizing your business is one of the primary aims for an entity since it acts as a shield protecting your personal possessions from business debts.
In the situation you mess up and the customer decides to sue you, the business assets will still be at risk. Unlike the former, if one decided to start an LLC, the only aspect that will be responsible for the given lawsuit is the LLC. Second, there are many tax benefits that are accorded business entities and since you will be saving money through this, you need to form one.
2. The Second Mistake Concrete Contractors Frequently Make Is Failure to Protect Their Ips
If for instance one has been having a trademark, a logo or even a patent, it is very important that he or she comes up with ways on how he or she can protect his or her invention. This is one of the most frequent business legal errors, which may worsen the situation afterwards quite dramatically. Ideally, you should make sure that you are working with a small business lawyer that specializes in such related fields for instance filing for patents as well as the registration of trademarks. Do not settle for a business lawyer that has no acquaintance with these subsections.
Business owners themselves also often pay little attention to content, be it on their website, in the ad, or in any promotions they have. This is arguably one of the worst legal missteps that a small business person is liable to make. You would not like your competitors to copy the content from you and start using it as their own work and their material instead of yours. It becomes very worse if competitors get your job done and then go on to put a copyright on it before you ever get a chance to do it yourself.
3. No Thereof: Template Of the Employee Contract
For any business it is imperative to employ people in order to advance. However, in order to ensure that you can protect yourselves when there is conflict of interest, you have to ensure that you have a proper employee’s contract formulated. First of all, you are going to have to establish the right type of expectations and guidelines concerning employees. Will the employees be ‘at-will’ which in essence means that one will be fired at any one time without lawyers’ interference? What kind of behaviors are expected of the employees? What other regulation is necessary to establish concerning the employees?
Second, you also have to be in compliance with state and federal laws with reference to the business. For example, most forms of trades will require the owner to have the workers compensation liability insurance. You will be penalized by the state if it’s established that your business doesn’t have coverage and will also have to compensate for the losses your employee sustains were he or she to be injured.
Conclusion
To conclude, you require data security- to avoid from cybercrime, secret formulas/procedures, and inside information protection. Perhaps you may require preparing non-compete, non-solicitation, and non-disclosure instruments.
