Ask HN: Does your lawyer attend your Board meetings? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Does your lawyer attend your Board meetings?

8 pointsjack78906 comments

Our attorney is offering to come for free (it's standard for the firm to offer that for startups). Would love to hear if other companies have their attorney attend. If so, is it helpful?

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I find that having people present that are not in any capacity directly involved with the day-to-day goings on tends to drag meetings out. I prefer to have them short and sweet, it's hard enough to have a meeting with more than 3 people present having a person there asking questions without the required background. People will start weighing their words in the presence of a lawyer.

When I need a lawyer I'll select one specifically based on their track record in that particular field.

Even if he's doing it 'for free' if there is legal work to flow out from that (and everybody will defer to the lawyer because of his great expertise) then you'll end up paying for it anyway. Smart marketing on their part.

You need a lawyer when:

- you're incorporating

- you make a major move (investment, layoffs, policy changes, exits, buyouts)

- when suing or being sued

Outside of that they're like a 5th wheel on a car.

Also, when I go to see a lawyer I make sure that I'm completely prepared, have a basic brief + all supporting documents. This will help a lot in keeping their hours down (and it really adds up, a simple out-of-court settlement will still cost you between 5 and 10 thousand bucks, going to court can easily go in to the 10's of thousands, especially when there are appeals).

For us, our lawyer is an advisor, and he's a lawyer who only works with startups, so we like to hear what he has to say. We include him on board emails, meetings, etc.

However, we gave him some equity and his participation is otherwise free in this regard. We certainly couldn't pay someone hundreds of dollars an hour to give us advice right now.

Has your attorney been an investor or successful business person other than just being an attorney? Whilst being an attorney can often give you great perspective and great vicarious experience, that doesn't necessarily translate to real-world experience as an entrepreneur. There are parables about listening to attorneys who offer business advice, you know...

At my last startup, our counsel was also the corporate secretary. It worked out well and let us get all board-related legal work done for a set fee.

This is a common practice for corporations, where you need to keep the meeting minutes as part of legal requirements of being a corp (c or s). You (as a Secretary of the corporation) can do it yourself or you can let them do it for you for free. Most people would choose latter.

I would say it is common practice for large corporations but is it really that way for small startups? That hasn't been my experience; generally there aren't any attorneys at a small startup's board meeting unless the attorney is a member of the board.

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