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Choosing a Business Lawyer for Your Professional Needs in Boston, MA
Whether you're drafting contracts for a new venture or registering your intellectual property, a Boston business lawyer can ensure that your company meets all of the necessary legal requirements. Legal counsel can also help save you money because a lawyer can catch costly clauses in contracts and keep you out of expensive lawsuits that might drain your profits.
If you've never hired a lawyer before, you might be wondering what kind of legal fees to expect, how to find the right lawyer for your needs, and if you really need a lawyer. Generally, any business owner or freelancer who has legal questions or concerns can benefit from a lawyer's advice. If you're currently facing an impending lawsuit or need to understand a complicated contract before signing, a lawyer might be a necessity.
Before you choose the right lawyer for your needs, you have to understand what Boston business lawyers can do for your business and how to work with one. This guide can help you find a lawyer to tackle your most pressing legal concerns.
Hiring Freelance Lawyers or Law Firms
When you need legal counsel, the scope of the job and your budget can help you determine whether to hire a freelance business lawyer or contract with a full law firm. A freelance lawyer works as an independent contractor. Legal work completed by a freelancer may be done at the lawyer's home, at a small office, or on-site at your business.
Freelance business lawyers typically cost less than engaging an entire law firm. A freelance lawyer may also be more flexible about payment terms and communication. Bigger law firms may only take calls during normal business hours, while a freelance lawyer might be willing to set up an after-hours phone conference or get back to you with answers on the weekend.
Why Hire a Business Lawyer
Legal matters related to businesses are often highly complex. Mistakes could cost you time and money or even put you at risk of a lawsuit or criminal indictment. A business lawyer not only helps you avoid common legal pitfalls but may also offer insight into more subtle aspects of the law that are easy to overlook. Some of the most common reasons you might want to hire a small business lawyer include:
- To protect your business from future legal challenges or lawsuits
- To protect your intellectual property, so competitors don't steal your ideas
- To resolve problems with other businesses and customers, such as collecting unpaid accounts
- To represent you in court during a lawsuit against you or to initiate a lawsuit on your company's behalf
- To help you negotiate contracts and understand legal language in official documents you sign
- To help you determine whether further litigation is necessary and whether pursuing legal action against other parties is worth the effort
How can a business lawyer help me?
Business lawyers handle the legal paperwork, processes, and procedures when you're running a company. An attorney who specializes in small business law can help you at every stage of your company's growth from the initial start-up to the sale or dissolution of your business. Some of the specific ways a business lawyer might help you include:
Drafting contracts & agreements
A business law attorney understands contract language and can help you create contracts that include all the necessary details. Your contract lawyer might create some standard templates to use with new employees, vendors, and clients. You can also have a lawyer look over contracts provided to alert you to any unclear language or potentially problematic provisions in the document.
Knowledge of current HR & employment laws
Business lawyers with expertise in employment law help ensure that your company complies with the law when you hire, fire, or recruit employees. For example, there are specific legal guidelines that you need to meet to classify someone as an employee, an independent contractor, or an unpaid intern. An incorrect classification could leave you open to legal penalties.
Your company also needs to comply with HR laws prohibiting discrimination in hiring, group health coverage laws, and background check laws. Your lawyer may offer suggestions for training programs to make sure all of your employees, including your HR department and managers, follow applicable regulations when interacting with workers and clients.
Up-to-date on immigration laws
If you hire employees who aren't U.S. citizens, a business lawyer can help you navigate the process of securing visas for foreign nationals, getting visas for U.S. employees travelling internationally for business, and complying with government record-keeping requirements. A business lawyer also ensures that your company is in compliance with Form I-9 requirements when you hire new employees.
Help navigating complex tax laws
A business lawyer works with your accountant to make sure that you file all necessary federal and state tax returns properly and that you maximize your corporate deductions while staying within the law. Your lawyer can also ensure that you collect the right taxes when selling products or services locally, to customers in another state, or internationally. Tax laws become especially complicated when you're buying, selling, or restructuring a business, so these are times when you should seriously consider hiring a business attorney with a background in tax law to help you through the process. Tax attorneys can also work with the IRS to negotiate payment of back taxes if your business owes money from previous tax periods.
Intellectual property insights
Whether you've invented a new gadget, created a work of art, or developed a biological therapy to treat disease, protecting your intellectual property prevents other people or companies from profiting from your ideas. A business lawyer helps you get trademarks, patents, and copyrights and can pursue legal action against anyone who uses your IP without your permission. Your lawyer can also handle licensing agreements when you want to use intellectual property owned by someone else or let someone license your protected ideas.
Manage business disputes
From clients who try to renegotiate a contract midway through a job to vendors that refuse to refund you for damaged goods in your bulk order, business disputes cost you time and money. A business lawyer acts as a buffer between you and the other party to help you settle the dispute without getting directly involved.
The best time to hire a business lawyer
Hiring a lawyer should be something you think about before an emergency legal situation. If you wait until you're in dire need of legal assistance, you might end up paying much more than you would if you already had a relationship with a business lawyer who you consult regularly. Hiring a business attorney during your start-up phase lets you delegate legal concerns to your lawyer so that you can focus on managing your company.
Choosing a Business Lawyer
In most cases, you will likely be working with your business lawyer for years to come, so look for someone with a personality and work philosophy similar to your own. Some of the things you should consider when picking a lawyer for your small business include:
Education and certifications
Check with the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers to ensure that the lawyer you hire is licensed to practice law in the state and has no recorded disciplinary actions on file.
Specializations and expertise
Obviously, you should choose a lawyer with a background in business law, not one specializing in criminal law or divorce cases. Specialization can sometimes go deeper than this though. Consider whether you need a more general business lawyer who can handle a variety of legal tasks or if you want someone who focuses mostly on IP law or foreign worker programs.
Terms of the legal relationship
Before you hire a business lawyer, you need to know what services the attorney typically provides. Some lawyers work on specific contracts with a defined timeline, which may be what you need if you're navigating the legalities of setting up a new business or working on a big contract with a set endpoint. Other lawyers may provide ongoing legal support through a retainer. In this case, you need to set up a weekly or monthly payment plan to keep the lawyer on call for your business whenever you need legal help.
What Happens When You Hire a Business Lawyer?
After you've decided which lawyer you want to work with, you should expect a process similar to the following:
1. The initial consultation
The first meeting with your business lawyer lets you get to know the attorney in a professional context to ensure that the working relationship is a good fit for both parties. Many lawyers offer a free initial consultation, but make sure you ask beforehand in case the lawyer charges for the time spent in the meeting.
2. Presenting your current situation
You should bring any documentation that you have about your current situation to the initial meeting and be prepared to discuss your legal needs. Your new lawyer might request more information or further paperwork, so send this as quickly as possible after the meeting to help your lawyer assess the situation.
3. Signing an engagement letter
The engagement letter is a contract between you and the lawyer setting out the terms of your working relationship. This document should detail any retainer fees you need to pay and how the lawyer charges for specific legal services.
4. Developing a communication schedule
Whether you're working through a bankruptcy, launching a new brand, or trying to turn something you discovered in your Longwood lab into a viable product, you need to communicate regularly with your business lawyer. This might mean weekly email check-ins to see how your project is progressing or in-person meetings that are scheduled as needed when something specific arises. However you and your lawyer opt to communicate, this should be spelled out in the initial contract.
How Business Lawyers Get Paid
Depending on how the business relationship is defined, you might pay your lawyer in a variety of ways. This should be defined in the engagement letter you both signed. Some common pay formats for business lawyers include:
Monthly retainers
A monthly retainer keeps the lawyer on your payroll to ensure that you have immediate access to legal help whenever you need it. Fees for any actual legal work may come out of the retainer or may be paid on top of the monthly rate.
Flat-fee contracts
Business lawyers working on a specific contract often charge a flat fee. This fee remains the same whether the lawyer spends a few hours or a few months working on your project. Flat fees for specific projects usually cost less in the long run than if you're paying hourly rates, but you might have to negotiate a new contract later if other legal issues arise after the original project is completed.
Hourly fees
Lawyers who charge hourly fees track the time they spend completing legal work for you and send you a bill at the end. Hourly rates typically range from $70 to $250 although lawyers with specific expertise might charge more for specialized services.
Contingency fees
Contingency fees come into play when your lawyer goes to trial for you. If you're suing someone for violating your trademark or breaking a contract, your lawyer may take a contingency fee from the amount of money you get if you win the lawsuit. This fee is usually a percentage of the final settlement or judgement, and the lawyer only gets paid if you win the case.