Some of the lessons I’ve learned in my first year as an attorney is that a lot of entrepreneurs, especially those who are operating on a shoestring budget, don’t seek out legal services when they start their business. There seems to be three main reasons why a new business owner does this:
- They think it’s too expensive.
- They are afraid it’s going to be complicated.
- They don’t understand the legalities of starting a business.
None of these are valid reasons for not calling a business attorney.
I recently attended a business seminar where a young man admitted he put off creating a business entity for years because he thought it was going to be hard. He was blown away by how easy it was. His fear put him at serious risk because until he created an entity, he could have lost his personal assets if the business was found liable for causing damage to someone because he didn’t have an entity that separated the business’ assets from his personal assets.
Before you assume you can’t afford legal services, call an attorney and ask what you need and what it will cost. Even if you can’t afford everything a lawyer could do for you, a lawyer who understands your situation will work with you and your budget. They will tell you what you can do on your own and likely provide resources to help you do it. They can tell you when it’s worth it to pay an attorney to do something for you, and the ramifications you could face if you don’t.
When you can’t afford to have your attorney draft a document for you, ask them if you could purchase a consultation to discuss how you could do it yourself or if you could draft it yourself and pay them to review it. There will be times when it’s cheaper and better use of your time to hire an attorney to draft the document from scratch than to try to write the first draft yourself. Call the attorney you’d hire to review the documents first to make sure that’s going to the best course of action. It might be more expensive to fix what you wrote.
There may also be organizations that provide cheap or free classes and consultations for business owners in your community. I spend three hours on the first Monday of the month providing free legal mentoring at Gangplank in Chandler. These services are a great way to get your needs met while keeping you within your budget or to free up more of your budget to afford your business’ legal needs.
If you’re a new business owner or thinking of starting a business, please call a business attorney in your community to discuss your legal needs. I’ve worked with enough clients to know that it’s easier and cheaper to do things right the first time than to clean up the mess that results when you don’t.
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