Entrepreneurs: Hire a Lawyer

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9 pointstransburgh2 comments

Obviously, having a lawyer who you have worked with and trust is essential in negotiating term sheets (and, even more obviously, actual funding agreements), because each one of them is different and because you are negotiating with another party who can and will try to insert provisions that you may not understand but which are severely disadvantageous to you. I also agree with Founders Agreements, since these will matter most when things go worst.

But legal incorporation docs? Employee agreements? I honestly see no reason not to recycle the same ones that we used for my previous venture. Of course, if you already have a lawyer on board than they should be reviewing all your legal agreements, but if you've just started out and want to incorporate before you've found a good lawyer, can anyone explain why you should wait?

You can certainly recycle incorporation papers, etc. You can also bear the brunt of the legal problems that may arise if those documents are defective.

I think one really has to understand the legal implications of forming a corporation (what you can and cannot do, what you will and will not be liable for) before one can accurately assess the necessity of having a lawyer handle that task. Lawyers don't make money filing papers; they make money suing people who screwed up the paperwork.

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