Top Four Legal Issues Facing Small Businesses: The Perspective from Your Lawyer

Wednesday, September 19 at 12 PM ET
Presented by: Joshua D. Wolson, Partner, Dilworth Paxson LLP
Content Level: Intermediate
This webinar is FREE to members and non-members

We will tackle four common legal issues that face most small businesses by tracking the life-cycle of a fictional small business. We will start with a potential business owner’s idea and track the legal issues that arise as she sets her business up, begins to operate it, hires people to do some work for her, and eventually plans what to do with it as she prepares to retire, sell the business, or leave it to her heirs.

In tracking this business, we will encounter a variety of problems familiar to most small businesses and discuss how to prepare for those issues and avoid potentially-costly legal pitfalls. First, we will address forming a business, including whether to set up some sort of formal entity such as an LLC or a corporation and, if so what type of entity to establish. Second, we will talk about intellectual property issues that small business owners are likely to confront. These include “freedom-to-operate” issues, meaning ways to avoid running afoul of someone else’s copyright, trademark, patent, or other intellectual property and ensure that you can operate your business free from litigation. They also include ways to protect your own intellectual property, including simple steps you can take with your own employees or contractors to make sure that they cannot take your trade secrets or methods and use them to compete against you. Third, we will talk about potential employment-related issues, particularly wage-and-hour law concerns such as overtime or considerations to determine whether someone is an employee or an independent contractor. We will also touch briefly on employment discrimination concerns. Fourth, and finally, we will talk about succession issues, meaning how to plan for the transition of a small business from one owner to another. Participants in the webinar should leave with enough knowledge to spot these issues before they arise and, hopefully, avoid any legal pitfalls as a result.

Join us on Wed., September 19 at noon ET to learn how to tackle the top small business legal issues.

This webinar will teach you:

• - A basic understanding of the different types of legal entities available to small business owners (such as an LLC or a Subchapter-S Corporation), and the possible benefits of each
• - Practical tips to avoid infringing on or facing litigation about someone else’s intellectual property
• - Simple ways to preserve a business’s own trade secrets and other intellectual property without having to engage lawyers
• A basic understanding of legal issues relating to the classification of workers as employees or independent contractors and the implications of that classification
• Useful tips on how to plan for someone else to take over a business in the future, whether through a sale or by passing control on to heirs

Recording of this webinar will be posted soon