Author: April 7, 2020

If you or someone you know owns a small business, the time to hire a lawyer is now. Don’t wait until it’s too late and you can bet there will come a time, a moment, where you find out that it is indeed too late to have a good attorney on your side. 

That because an attorney can provide you with useful knowledge and information for helping guide you along in dealing with everything from incorporating your business to dealing with all laws and regulations to even dealing with tax issues before they get out of control. 

Any small business owner can find himself or herself forced to address legal issues that are thrust upon them when they least expect them. Defending yourself in a lawsuit, frivolous or not, could have a major impact on the future of your business. A decision or judgment against you in a court of law could be detrimental to your bottom line. 

Moving forward without a lawyer on your side can put you at a serious disadvantage. Operating your business with an attorney looking out for your best interests can help you avoid the many potential pitfalls that exist. The following are just some of the reasons why it makes sense to get legal assistance sooner than later: 

Startup Business Challenges

Small business owners are facing a myriad of obstacles and challenges when they are just getting their enterprise off the ground. In order to meet those challenges head on, hiring a good attorney is something that should be considered from the start. Too many businesses wait until they are facing some kind of pressing legal matter, but this just isn’t a smart way to proceed. 

In many cases, hiring an attorney ahead of time could have been instrumental in helping that business avoid having to deal with that legal matter in the first place. Most businesses can use a legal advisor to navigate through any federal, state, or local laws that might pose a problem to the operational capability of the business, the products or services that are offered, and any other legal concerns that business owners aren’t even aware they could be facing. 

Tax Issues

All small businesses are going to need to file taxes at the time they are due. An attorney can help business owners navigate the complex, confusing, and constantly evolving tax codes. One mistake could cost your business a lot of money in penalties, fees, and tax liabilities. Conversely, the right attorney can also confirm that you aren’t needlessly taking on an excessive amount of tax while ensuring that you are paying all the monies that are owed, in full and on time. 

Partnerships

Here is where things can get a little sticky for business owners, particularly those who decide to partner up on an endeavor. A large majority of small businesses go under in the first three years not because the company failed to grow or meet the demands of their customers, it’s because the partners involved in the company couldn’t work together. Too many disagreements and conflicting views as to the best way to run the business are the main contributing factors to the failure of many small business startups. 

Having a lawyer on your side can help to iron out disagreements before they become legal problems. When partnerships fail the next usual step is for the parties to go after one another in court. That usually occurs because the paperwork governing the partnership was either insufficient or nonexistent. As a result, nothing on paper means that both parties can claim they are the aggrieved party and, soon enough, lawsuits are exchanged and the company ends up falling by the wayside. If things get particularly out of control and one of the partners assaults the other, the victimized party may be looking for a good personal injury attorney in Raleigh, NC. 

Lawsuits from Customers

Every business aims to make their customers happy. But sometimes a product doesn’t work properly, a service ends up injuring someone, or an individual decides to bring you to court over some other grievance and you find yourself having to go to court to defend your rights. 

Hiring an attorney after the summons has been issued could put you at a disadvantage for finding the best lawyer to represent you. If you’re already getting dragged into court, your legal fees can become a lot more expensive and, in most cases, an attorney could have advised you to act in a way that could have kept this matter out of the courts from the get-go.