THE NEW YORK
TIMES
12/01/2006
Ythan Lax was not a newcomer in the business world. He had spent years in corporate communications before striking out on his own by opening a Little Gym franchise in upstate New York. But despite his experience, he felt unprepared to cope with the myriad legal issues that arose and sought out a lawyer for help.
"If you think that having an attorney that is qualified is expensive, try not having one," Lax said, who paid $7,000 for his. "I can't count the number of mistakes I would have made — taxes, financing and, perhaps the scariest part — signing a seven-year lease with a personal guarantee," without the advice of counsel.
When do you really need a lawyer? Despite the proliferation of both self-help books and Internet advice, even the most sophisticated of business people find, as Lax did, that when starting a business they need an individual lawyer to guide them through the most basic decisions as well as the more complicated ones, like financing and property issues.
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The business owner also should think about any intellectual property assets that will be used by the new company. At a minimum, product or company names should be researched online first, even though a lawyer ultimately should perform a trademark search. The owner also must think about how to protect other assets — designs or processes, for example — when starting up. While it may be simpler to contribute the assets to the business, Walsh said licensing them to the business could be a better option, because "you can maintain some control over use of the invention."
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