Legal Services You Can Afford...It's True!
by Marc Gilenson
Managing Editor
Most Entrepreneurs go through their day without thinking about legal services. Most entrepreneurs think more about marketing, sales, raising money, hiring people, and paying their bills, not about protecting themselves legally.
Entrepreneurs may hate to pay for insurance, but they understand the need and will seek out an insurance agent and pay for the peace of mind that comes with it.
The following 7 reasons are just the major reasons that entrepreneurs need legal services:
-
review office rental/purchase contracts
- development of non-compete clauses to their hiring agreement
- human resource issues
- IRS audit
- client contracts review
- collections letters
- personal injury/property damage collection
There are many more reasons why an entrepreneur would need to retain legal services, however based on an informal study conducted by the Sales & Management Group the seven reasons mentioned above are the most common.
One problem has always been the expense of hiring a lawyer, not to mention knowing if they are any good. Have you ever tried to call a lawyer and get some free advice? The response is most often, they can't give legal advice to people that are not their clients... O.K. ask them what it takes to be their client and after they pick you off the floor from price shock, you feel exposed and helpless, leading to you retaining the attorney!
Even when you know and trust a lawyer, you may find that they have to refer you to another lawyer that handles what you need done. More time wasted trying to verify that the new lawyer can handle what you need, or yea... don't forget the retainer just to ask questions.
Corporate America has known that most entrepreneurs can't afford or don't understand the reason for retaining lawyers, this is why they constantly abuse entrepreneurs with the threat of legal action. Did you ever wonder why every large corporation has a law firm on retainer, and most have legal departments. When your customer or prospect sends your contract to their legal department...who do you send it too!
There are options for entrepreneurs. According to Harvey Brown (hlb@prepaidlegal.com), an independent associate of Pre-Paid Legal Services, states that "hundreds of South Florida entrepreneurs have the leveled the playing field by joining Pre-Paid Legal Services. For an investment as low as $75 per month local entrepreneurs have access to one of the largest law firms in South Florida. For this small monthly investment entreprenerus have the ability to have unlimited phone consultation, review of contracts, support with human resource legal issues, collections, and of course personal injury/property damage issues entrepreneurs can have the legal services they need."
Many lawyers will cringe when you mention Pre-Paid Legal Services and find a million reasons why this type of legal protection is not good for entrepreneurs. I have found that Pre-Paid Legal Service to be very effective and efficient for myself and many of my clients. I believe that the reason so many lawyers are not happy with Pre-Paid Legal Services becoming so popular in South Florida is that they realize they can't compete. This is not to say that Pre-Paid is the only solution, if you find a quality lawyer or firm, then
by all means use them to protect you and your business.
Whether you use Harvey Brown and Pre-Paid or one of the thousands of other quality lawyers in South Florida, entrepreneurs need to have legal resentation before they need a lawyer.
All of our columns are blogs, so if you are an entrepreneur and want to tell us your legal dilemna, just do it!
