Do you have a startup business that just quite recently opened its doors? You may think that you don’t need a full team of legal experts just yet, but this is where you’re wrong. Now, especially while your business is just getting off the ground, is the perfect time to partner with corporate lawyers to help you navigate the legal side of running a business.
Not yet convinced? Here is a list of things you CAN’T do, but your corporate lawyer definitely CAN:
- Review the legal and binding contracts – It’s common for businesses, even startup ones, to enter into legal contracts with suppliers, liquidators, financing agencies, building owners, software providers, security agencies, and other organisations. This is why it’s crucial to have a corporate lawyer at your beck and call because this saves you from the potential headache of having to understand legal jargon and semantics.
- Understand how employee stock options work – For most startups, a more efficient way to manage your capital funds is to offer your own employees stock options. The trick here is to allow your corporate lawyer to devise a clear and delineated structure that works well for your business and the industry where it belongs. Stock options are quite complicated and highly competitive, which is why a lawyer can best protect the vested interests of your startup business.
- Draft legal documents – Don’t even get us started on ChatGPT and the gaping pitfalls that await you if you choose to draft your legal documents using AI. The absolute foolproof way to draft up legal documents is through your corporate lawyer. State everything from ownership agreements, lease agreements, employment contracts, suppliers contracts, service and resources agreements, security agreements, insurance agreements, and so on. When your startup is still in the infancy stage, it’s even more dire to hire the expertise of a corporate lawyer to help you navigate necessary written negotiations and conditions that could make a severe impact on the operations of our business.
- Protecting your intellectual property – This is especially crucial if your startup business offers a unique or patented product that’s highly in demand in the market. As an innovator and a businessman, you need someone to protect your interests and ideas and help you navigate the scene of patents, trademarks, copyrights, and other intellectual property terms. A corporate lawyer essentially prevents your business from copying, misusing, or securing your innovative products and services.
As your startup slowly and steadily grows, or even if it just quite literally opened its doors, you need to have legal counsel at your beck and call to help you face the challenges of a business startup. The sooner you get a corporate lawyer as your partner, support and consultant, the better you can secure the future of your business.
