The Startup Law 101 Series is intended to educate founders and entrepreneurs on the basics of startup law.
Here are my suggestions on this important issue.
1. Law is fundamentally a specialty field and employers should leave it, for the most part, to specialists when it comes to technical details.
This part cannot be emphasized enough. The law is a maze of complexities. If you, as an entrepreneur, try to dominate it at that level, you will be an unusual entrepreneur if you don’t quickly get discouraged and give up the effort altogether.
2. However, entrepreneurs can feel trapped by specialists who lock them up and sometimes abuse them. Lawyers have been known to try to capitalize on the “Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt” (FUD) factor that can be used to scare businesses where none legitimately exist. Therefore, it can be dangerous to leave everything in the hands of specialists without being informed about their proper role and without being proactive in managing their activities as contract agents.
3. Entrepreneurs should try to get a working knowledge of the law as it affects their companies. The emphasis here is on “work”. This is not technical knowledge. It’s not about going to law school or learning to think like a lawyer. It is about trying to obtain the equivalent knowledge about law that a serial entrepreneur might have; it’s about knowing the decision points and the main factors that affect those decisions so you can manage a lawyer’s efforts to provide you with technical assistance on those points It’s about learning the fundamentals of how businesses are formed, financed, managed and sold . It’s about understanding how deals work within the context of a business. As an entrepreneur, not have know how these things work beyond following the advice of their lawyers. But you’ll be much sharper if you do. It can be led by professionals or you can actively manage your efforts, even using your expertise, to help you achieve your goals.
4. Therefore, while the law is fundamentally boring to most business people, the smart ones try to educate themselves in this area as needed to achieve the goal of being effectively proactive in working with attorneys and being able to use the law effectively to promote their businesses. objectives.
5. What does this investment of time and effort bring you? It will teach you how to use the law to help protect yourself from liability risks related to your business. It will improve your ability to effectively plan the launch and growth of your business. Ultimately, it will save you money because it will improve your ability to manage your attorneys’ time.
6. How do you get this knowledge? It depends on you. I emphasize here only that you should not disdain the task just because it involves the law. Nor should you overdo it in the other direction by immersing yourself in specialized ways of knowing. Strike a balance. Invest the time necessary to understand business law at a high level, with a strategic and non-technical approach. Use this author’s Startup Law 101 series to learn the basics of startup law. Read top blogs in the area (Startup Company Lawyer and The Startup Lawyer are good). Read the posts. Think about the problems. Get a broader perspective on how legal issues affect you and your business.
You can also use self-help resources from publishers who specialize in such work. These can be useful for learning about general legal issues affecting businesses, although they are less useful specifically for getting started.
In the end, experience will be your best teacher. But you will need to acquire some basic knowledge to ensure that you learn the most from your experiences. And above all, make sure you work with a business attorney who will work with you and educate you on the legal steps you are taking. Beware of attorneys who keep you in the dark and simply spread the FUD factor.
Remember, don’t be discouraged if you can’t understand the legal technicalities. Your goal is not to master the technicalities. It is to gain practical knowledge. Place a high value on anything that gives you that perspective. This is what the serial entrepreneur masters. It is what he will need to master as well if he is to be optimally effective as an entrepreneur in managing legal matters to further his business goals.