Business Planning Help

Do I really need an Attorney? 

While considering what you want to include in your Business Plan, the wise thing to do is look into any legal aspects of your planning and include the essential ones in the completed Plan. We’ll review some of those aspects here. If you have more in-depth questions about legal matters, I am not an attorney. But my partner in creating this website, Spencer McIlvaine, is an attorney. So you will want to contact him at www.mcilvainelaw.com.

Some things of a legal nature that should be a part of your pre-planning or in the Business Plan itself – usually both - include:

** Organizing your business into an LLC (Limited Liability Company) or a Corporation. An attorney can help you decide which entity to select. The main reason, as I see it, is for some liability protection. As a Sole Proprietor, you expose yourself – and your family – to an unnecessary level of risk that may be alleviated by organizing your company. Another plus in organizing your venture is that to those reading your Business Plan – a lender or investor – it makes a much more positive impression. Your company looks more stable or “intentional” than a Sole Proprietorship, which could make you look like you’re just “trying out” your business idea with no particular long-term plans.

When I have a client whose startup resources are fairly limited, I recommend they get this taken care of before they commit to the Business Plan project – I think it’s that important.

** An attorney can also help you protect the name, logo, etc. in one way or another. Those things and others are referred to as Intellectual Property and include things like trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, etc. (A Trade Secret is a low cost alternative to patents. See the McIlvaine Law link for more information.) Just registering your company name with the State, as with a Fictitious Name registration, doesn’t really protect that name. They can usually tell you if the name you’re trying to register has already been registered by someone else. But if it has not been, you are still not protected from someone else wanting to use it themself. For that, you’ll need an attorney specializing in Intellectual Property such as The McIlvaine Law Firm. It would be a shame – actually a disaster, to some degree – if you went to all the trouble and expense of setting up your new business venture only to learn someone else is either already using your name, logo, etc., or has taken yours. You probably could still go ahead with your business idea, but you’d have to change all that in every part of your Business Plan and project. If your Plan was already finished, that would mean an extra expense to re-do all the parts with the changes needed, not to mention having to re-do all your business printing – business cards, letterhead, envelopes, invoices, contracts, ads, directory listings, etc. – all would need to be changed. This is another example of being “Penny wise and Pound foolish”. My personal preference is for an attorney who specializes in Intellectual Property, rather than one who is “willing to do it for you”. There’s a big difference!

** In my ten years in the business planning field, there’s one recurring excuse I’ve heard over and over by people starting new businesses. They say they can’t afford to get appropriate legal advice and assistance “right now. I’ll have that taken care of later, after I start making some money”. That reminds me of another old saying I’ve heard all my life: That’s like “locking the barn after the horse is gone”! When they say that to me, I always have to ask them if they’re talking about the money someone could take away from them when they sue them! You need whatever protection is available to you from the very start, not later. If their financial situation at startup is that difficult, I always prefer that my clients start with the legal assistance first and then come to me for help with their Business Plan after the appropriate protections and legal issues have been taken care of. It’s only CommonSense!

** Other business issues your attorney can assist you with are creating other legal documents you might use daily in your business. They can vary, of course, with the type of business you operate, but can include Contracts, Leases, Vendor Agreements, Conflict of Interest Agreements, Non-Compete Agreements, Employment Contracts, and others that may pertain specifically to your own industry. Your attorney can prepare these documents for you, or review these documents if you already have them, especially if you created them yourself. If you are not an attorney yourself, it is relatively easy for them to not be accurate or adequate and not afford you the legal protections usually associated with each one. They also might not read as professionally as you need them to and, as a result, may not give the strong, positive image your business needs.

** Something I’ve been happy to take advantage of with my own business attorney is his retainer program. It affords me more of the personal attention I feel that I, as a Small Business owner, really need and that can often be less than sufficient with a larger law firm. I like the accessibility, too. If I have a question, I want an answer ASAP, not whenever he can get to me. It’s a tax-deductible business expense that is well worth it. (Be sure to check with your CPA on tax deductibility, just to be sure.)

Getting professional legal advice is not only extremely important - it’s the professional way to handle your business affairs. Having your business organized and being able to tell the lender you have a legal advisor, will make your business plan that much stronger and more appealing to a lender.