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What can a small business lawyer do for my business?

Any successful and growing business will have occasional needs for legal representation or consultation. To attract investors to your business (and to still maintain day-to-day control over your business operations without interference from investors), you may find that you need to review the business entity you've chosen. As your business grows, you may also want to look at changing the legal entity of your business to better suit the size and type of business you have. For example, a successful sole proprietorship or general partnership may be better off as an LLC. A growing LLC may reach the point where it makes economic and practical sense to incorporate.

Often when your business is successful and grows, you need to borrow money from the bank or lease equipment. An attorney can be very helpful in reviewing loan or lease documents and explaining to you exactly what those documents mean, and point out any potential problems which could arise from such documents.

If your business physically moves or expands to require more office, retail, manufacturing or storage space, you will likely want to have an attorney review any leases or purchase contracts of commercial real estate.

If your business does any work with outside consultants or independent contractors, written agreements drafted by a lawyer can be very helpful in establishing a framework for what is expected, how results will be measured, and what exactly the services will cost.

As your business grows and you need to delegate important responsibilities to key employees, you may want to have written employment agreements with such key employees to both help retain them, and to make sure that they will not disclose any proprietary information to others. You may also want to ensure that key employees do not leave your company and share the proprietary information with others, or to start up a competing business. These documents are complex to draft and require the help of an attorney.

The laws affecting businesses continue to grow both in number and complexity. Sometimes laws and administrative rules are passed with little fanfare, but they may have a substantial impact (positive or negative) on a given businesses. Periodic consultation with a lawyer can help your business stay current with the law.

If you plan on selling your business, a business lawyer may be helpful to advise you of how to make your business look the most attractive to buyers, and to draft or review any of the contracts for the sale of the business. For any business other than a sole proprietorship, you should also develop a plan to handle any changes in partners or shareholders.

Finally, although unrelated directly to business law, any business owner, partner or shareholder should have an estate plan both to provide for the continuation of the business and to provide for their family after their death. As a business grows or changes, these individuals should update their estate plans from time to time.