General Counsel / General Business Strategy / Compliance

Many established companies have a General Counsel or Chief Legal Officer, typically an attorney, who advises the company on a range of matters to help achieve success while minimizing risks.

Have you ever thought in your business –

  • It would be great to run this issue by a lawyer?
  • I wonder if we’re doing something that will get us into trouble with the State or the Feds?
  • I’d like the services of a trusted advisor?
  • It would be great to have something big companies have – a dedicated legal professional who knows your goals and can give practical advice based on the business you have?

Our focus on assisting business owners in building and protecting means that we can answer your call when you need general legal help but don’t know exactly what it is.  We understand your business is likely the economic engine for you and your family.   We provide you and your business the same type of services as an in-house General Counsel, but at a fraction of the cost.

Although we are not in-house, we endeavor to learn your business and what you are trying to accomplish.  At the same time, we have first-hand knowledge and experience to give practical legal advice based on the types of business decisions that you as a small or medium sized business owner must make every day.

Although all of our services could be thought of as “Outside General Counsel Services”, the ones on this page focus on things that are broader than strictly legal services, such as:

  • General Business Strategy
    • To help reach long-term goals
    • To protect the brand
    • To identify risks
    • To identify opportunities
  • Structuring Personnel Arrangements, including
    • Alignment of worker and company goals
    • Dealing with the intricacies of wage and hour laws
    • Compliance with other labor law requirements
    • Processes to shape better emails, social media, and other business correspondence by your personnel
  • Design and implement Compliance Programs as required for your business and establish processes for areas involved with legal issues on a day-to-day basis.

General Business Strategy

“A lawyer for business strategy?”, you might ask.  Our lawyers have not only legal training, but have also worked in house with business owners.  We have seen a lot of situations and can advise on strategies that are most likely to be effective.

But why think about it at all?  Focusing only on day-to-day problems deprives an owner of reaching long term goals.

You face threats to your business every day. Sometimes you know it and other times not. We help you identify the risks that your business is facing and work with you to avoid them completely or mitigate damaging effects.

For commercial risks, contract provisions or insurance or a combination can be the solution.  These can include the usual liability and cost issues, but also extraordinary risks such as an unplanned departure of a partner or a weather disaster.

We also help identify opportunities:

  • Would you like to identify marketing opportunities?
  • Do you have a “brand”? Can the brand be protected?
  • Do you plan to seek financing to expand your business?
  • Do you plan to exit your business some day?
  • Do you know what investors, lenders, and buyers are looking for when they want to see your financial records?
  • Would you like to do your work more efficiently with fewer employees?

These are just a few opportunities to be plan for.

We can help on other sorts of business strategy issues as well, such as:

  • How the chart of accounts is structured (in preparation for outside financing)
  • Assessing opportunities for branding and trademarking, as well as managing the trademark process
  • Assess opportunities to improve business practices through technology improvements or upgrades
  • And more.

Compliance Programs / Processes

Compliance Programs come in many forms, including those for

Even if you do not work internationally, many of your customers – especially large companies – want to know that you operate by high standards.  These matters can come up in many ways and we can help you deal with them.

We can help you set up and implement one or more compliance programs and processes designed for your business.