Legal can be intimidating, and lawyers don’t usually help make it any better. It’s got its own ridiculous language and from a business owner’s standpoint, it’s a nuisance and the possibility of a crushing lawsuit or dispute can threaten the long term success of the business. So, it’s no wonder that most businesses don’t see the benefit in using a lawyer until they have a problem and try to piecemeal together what they think are the basic legal needs of a business.
The general idea is that something is better than nothing, and of course, you can find anything you need online these days. It’s common for business owners to pull random legal information off the internet and use it for their business. Only, that isn’t exactly right and something may end up exposing a business to more risk than the doing nothing would.
Half-Hearted Legal Attempts Put Your Business At Risk
Here are a couple of areas that businesses usually have substantial, but unrealized risks, due to a compilation of documents found online or at a document creation website.
- You don’t have company documents that were created and drafted for your specific business, or you pulled together the documents from the various internet searches and cobbled together something that doesn’t reflect how your business operates or the business structure you operate under.
- You don’t have contracts, or maybe you do but you haven’t regularly reviewed them since the business was started. It’s common for businesses to be using some sort of agreement for clients and customers that hasn’t been looked over in years, and you’re running the risk of contracts being invalidated because they lack certain language. There’s a chance you’d have been better just not using a contract than using one that works against you.
- You don’t use legal services, or regularly get legal advice because you don’t have any legal issues. This is a common thought with business owners and it’s almost never true. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of legal services that can have a positive impact on your business? The problem is that you are collecting risk as you move along, it’s unavoidable, and each unknown becomes more and more of a potential issue over time, so collectively you start to reach an extremely high risk point - how much of a gambler are you?
How Do You Fix or Address the Problem and Protect Your Business
- Be proactive about using legal services. They work in favor of your business, so make sure your corporate documents are correct, that you have a system for managing contracts and whatever other potential risks there are for your specific business.
- Be leary of using form generators and online resources for legal documents and advice, they aren’t lawyers, and while they might be a solution for some businesses, if you’re serious about what your doing and looking at the big picture they aren’t long term options.
- Integrate legal into you operations and use it to drive your company strategy. Legal can be a powerful tool, especially for small and mid sized companies, don’t shy away from it, use it to your advantage to minimize threats and cut down on competition.
Doing nothing is certainly an option, as is doing it yourself, but don’t expose your business to even more risk than is already there. You put too much into it to not protect it and yourself where you can. Weak attempts at managing legal are going to cost you, and it’s probably going to be a lot.
If you’re looking for a trusted legal partner Launch is here to help; reach out to us to set up a call.