Both small businesses and big corporations are site of expertise in their respective fields. Business managers are highly specialized persons who primarily focus on profitable and efficient management of the entity. As a business executive, you have to devote all your energy and time to this purpose and you don’t have to worry about the legal issues of the company. However, all businesses will require the services of a legal professional at some point in time. Therefore, business executives should outsource the services of a corporate attorney to help in navigating these legal matters. It’s wise to employ the services of a legal lawyer who has a lot of knowledge about your industry. Here are some of the reasons why you need legal professionals on board.
• Business Agreements and Contracts
All businesses are expected to enter into several executive contracts with a broad range of parties. Some of the common contracts include real estate or leases, sales contracts, corporate structure documents, partnerships, and supply agreements. Any unenforceable or unfavorable provision in any of these agreements can have severe consequences to your business. You can have a team of skilled negotiators on your staff but lawyers will review all these documents and protect your business from litigation or any other negative effects that result from unenforceable contracts.
• The Human Resource Minefield
Employment laws and regulations are quite complex and each category of employees and businesses have their own unique requirements. A legal team will help you human resource department settle the common legal issues that involve hiring practices, benefits, and employee leave just to name a few.
• Regulatory Compliance
All businesses are subjected to different federal, state, and local regulatory requirements depending on your niche. Some of them include intellectual property filings, political/campaign finance regulations, environmental regulations, and securities regulations among others. Infractions on these regulations can lead into hefty fines. Therefore, it is important to remain on top of these laws and regulations that keep on changing. Corporate attorneys will assist you to complete all the required reports and filings to the government and also identify all the necessary requirements.
• Tax Counseling
The primary determinant of your tax responsibility and liability is your company’s corporate structure. You need to use a certified accountant to prepare tax reports but corporate lawyers will assist you with tax counseling and planning so that you can reduce the overall tax burden. Lawyers can also assist you to come up with the structure of your entity at the outset in such a way that it will minimize the tax liability.
• Crisis Management and Litigation
The examples that are provided in the preceding section are mainly concerned with ‘chronic’ legal issues. However, lawyers can also assist you in handling ‘acute’ legal matters like government investigations or criminal or legal litigation. Apart from drafting pleadings, business lawyers will also help you to settle negotiations.
Most of these legal issues can be incredibly time-consuming. Having a corporate attorney for your brand will make sure that your entity devotes the right attention to all legal obligations. The other business employees will concentrate on the business itself. You need to hire a legal firm that has a lot of experience in all these areas. Having a trained lawyer on board will minimize the business liability and save your company a lot of money in the long run.