Dave!

September 25th, 2006 at 4:48 pm

Not too mention, having good counsel *before* you even form your entity can be extremely valuable. Issues that you might not consider when you’re filling out that boilerplate template for your corporation or LLC can often be a very costly mistake later.

A little extra money spent on having an attorney help you with your by-laws/operating agreement, getting them right for *your* company, can end up saving you *major* money in lawsuits later.

T.Walsh

October 1st, 2006 at 4:42 am

As a self-funded, almost launched into business entrepreneur with some experience in struggling to get into business, I’d say this is great advice in theory. I paid a lot of money to an attorney (highly recommended to me by my commercial banker) to set-up my LLC. Paid a significant amount of money to get a non-disclosure agreement appropriate for my business to use in approaching website developers and anyone I’d hire to construct the website. Paid another pot of money to that same attorney for him to review the 8-page contract for a web development company (to build my website) before I signed that contract and hired them to do the work. Per terms of the contract, that website was to be completed by the end of June, 2005…at the cost of MANY many thousands.

Paid 1/3 as a deposit to get work started; paid 1/3 at ostensible midpoint in development; final 1/3 due upon website’s completion. Web dev. co. missed their deadline; had lots of excuses and reasons why they missed, provided lots of rationally written promises with new timeline. {At NO point were they just “left to their own devices” as there was 2-way communication and, after they missed the 6/05 deadline, weekly progress reports required and progress meetings.}

15 months later, they were still only 80% done with the site, making/breaking promises, setting/missing completion dates… 5/2006, paid a lot of money for the attorney to re-review the original contract ~ resulting in his telling me they were in breach of contract by missing the 6/2005 completion date (duh!) and in his opinion, it wouldn’t pay to sue them as they are formed as an LLC and would just fold that business, start up under a different name…..and likely hadn’t the funds regardless to reimburse me whether I won a lawsuit or not. (Thanks.)

Spent 2 months seeking affordable legal assistance; essentially, was told that clearly I have a suit, preponderance of evidence is on my side (such as their many, many emails admitting/apologizing for the delays and missed deadlines, with rewritten project timelines and promises and etc.) but that it would cost me far more (paying an atty. to handle all the documents, delays of court dates, etc. etc. etc.) to take the suit through courts than I could hope to win -if- that web dev. co. stayed in business to the bitter end.

Upshot: web dev. co. is still in business doing websites for other folk; did not finish my website; did not and will not refund even 1 cent of the MANY thousands paid to them… Attorney received thousands from me for his no doubt quite competent “work.”

Now…….please tell me: who but for the attorneys’ pockets themselves is a good attorney worthwhile?

David Askaripour

October 1st, 2006 at 5:32 pm

@T.Walsh

Wow, this really reminds me when I started my first business 3 years ago. I remember spending $5000.00 to hire an Internet solutions firm here in NYC. The job was supposed to last 4 weeks; it lasted roughly 5.5 months and I was left with a bunch of spaghetti code and an incomplete site.

Halfway into the project — after numerous breaches in contracts — I found out that they were sub-contracting all the work to India and I was left in the dark for months.

I then had to start spending time every morning 12- 3AM speaking to these horrible coders for months, trying to explain to them what I needed done. (At the time, I was a web developer novice and rookie).

To make a long story short, I threaten to sue them, but just ended up taking what they did complete and stupidly spent another $5000.00 to outsource it to Holland, Europe.

A similar situation occurred, but they were in fact able to get the site up and running (it was still buggy, though).

Looking back, I would have definitely hired a lawyer to personally draw up my own contract, and not have depended solely on their contract which they really abused.

Also, I would NEVER outsource again; especially if there is a language barrier issue. Your best best is to learn the ins-and-outs of web development and find someone who is extremely smart; someone who preferably lives in your country and understands your needs without a problem; someone who eats code for breakfast.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER hire a web developer if you don’t understand the time it takes to build an application, at least a basic understanding of scripting languages (PHP, ASP, etc..), have some design knowledge (Photoshop and Illustrator).

Because if you go into a web development contract blind, you’re bound to get raped.

Lema Khorshid

October 5th, 2006 at 10:51 pm

Please read carefully : “Don’t blame your attorney for a mistake that YOU could have prevented.”

Once you decide to be an entreprenuer — the man/woman that steers the ship — your thought process needs to change. Since, you have consciously chosen to be the “leader” (so to speak), you must exercise sound discretion when making choices that will have a major impact on your business operations. (I can’t stress this enough!)

On one hand, that entails being selective about the people that you do business with; and, on the other hand, that also means being selective about the people that you engage to do business for YOU.

It is all about being “proactive.” Be proactive about choosing an attorney; and, once you’ve chosen an attorney, be proactive about the attorney-client relationship. Here are three golden rules:

1. Do your homework. It does not matter if the attorney was referred to you by an expert in your field. If he doesn’t understand “you” and “your business,” the referral means nothing. So, when selecting an attorney be proactive about the process. Ask the prospective attorney about his expertise in the legal matters that you want him to assist you with: Has he handled similar cases? Can he provide you with references? Does he have an experience in your industry?

2. Do your research. Once you’ve selected your legal representation, do your own research. Make sure you understand the major issues that are on the table and always continue to ask questions; and, if something doesn’t “sit right” with you, it will never magically resolve itself. So, speak up. Again, ask questions. Remember that you hired a “counselor.”

3. Full disclosure is key. Always provide your attorney with a complete and accurate picture of your business environment and the issues that you are (or were) facing. Encourage your attorney to help you implement protocols in your business model to so that your preventing fires from starting and your extinguishing those that do start immediately.

It is unfortunate that you had a bad experience, but don’t write all attorneys off. Some of us can actually help you add value to your business.