What's the proper course of action if you don't have an attorney?
* get comfortable reading legal documents, this will allow you to have more
intelligent conversations with your attorney
* don't let your attorney make your business decisions, one of their jobs is to
point out risks, one of your jobs (owner/ceo/leadership) is to figure out how
to mitigate risk but that is not the same thing as avoiding all risks
* learn to draft legalese, it will help minimize your attorney's billable hoursFor more open-ended work, it is often billed by the hour (time and expense). If the work is non-trivial, they may ask for a retainer, which is a down payment against future hourly work and expenses incurred by the firm.
Another common billing model, called contingency, is generally reserved for cases where the firm is optimistic they will be able to receive a significant monetary judgment or settlement, which they will take part of for their time and effort.
Expect to pay more than you expect to pay.
ETA: America is a "pay to play" country, and those payments are mediated by lawyers. What I mean is: enforcement of laws mostly happens via suing people, and you need to be able to pay an attorney to win that suit.
If you don’t know anyone that would be in the area of law that you’re looking for, ask for _any_ attorney recommendations, then ask those attorneys for recommendations for people in the area of law you need.
If you absolutely cannot find a lawyer through people you know (and, really, try asking people), then you can look up a lawyer referral service for your state. Most state or county bars will have some program for making referrals to lawyers. Often these will have a low-ish flat fee, which will get your a short initial consultation with a few lawyers in the relevant area of law.
For billing, it’s something to ask your lawyer, thought most lawyers will have some kind of billing program where you pay hourly for what you use, and don’t need to pay some ongoing fee just to have the lawyer as “your lawyer”. Small business that only need a lawyer for a few hours a couple times a year aren’t uncommon clients for business lawyers.
Attorneys know attorneys. I’d still recommend starting with your network, then asking those attorneys who they would recommend for the services you need. Or ask them if they know anyone that might be able to refer you.
I’m sorry, that just doesn’t sound at all credible to me.
It almost cannot be accurate by definition. There is no legal service that a hobbyist could _ever_ afford if there are <= 24 qualified specialists in the United States.
I have advice for this. Most attorneys, at least in my area, will sit down and talk with you at no charge. My advice is to take advantage of this before you have an actual issue that needs attention and talk with a few of them. Investigate them, talk to their clients if you can, ask about them with professional organizations, etc.
And then just use them for routine stuff every so often. Run contracts by them before you sign, etc. The idea is that you want to develop a relationship with them so that you and they know each other. Then, if something comes up where you really need an attorney, yours is already very familiar with you and what you're doing.
> Is there some kind of ongoing subscription cost to keep being "my attorney" or just pay per hour when you have an issue?
There is a concept of keeping an attorney "on retainer" -- which basically means prepaying for legal services. At a small scale, this isn't worth doing. Treat your attorney like your auto mechanic: keep a relationship going, go to them for your oil changes and other routine stuff, and pay by the hour. Then when you need important work done, they're primed and ready.
If you are comfortable with legal documents; have a law dictionary to understand what specific language means; and read historical case law on the topic in question, you will be well prepared to have a seat at the table with your attorneys.
Is this even at all accessible to anyone who isn't already in a major law firm? I'm assuming it requires some sort of thousand-dollar subscription to an exploitative publishing house?
Assuming you are in the US, all case law is public domain (although documents used in cases aren't)
If not, call the city or county clerk and ask, they often have access at the courthouse to PACER and friends.
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/
Put it in your deepweb toolbox.
You can also get some free credit every quarter on PACER. With the recap extension, you can contribute that to RECAP automagically.
Maybe it's cheaper to have one on retainer. How much per month, if like a normal citizen your only daily legal risks are random megacorporations threatening you?
Should everyone in the US have a lawyer on call? Should we consider it a normal tax for being a member of the US legal system? An insurance everyone signs up for like drivers insurance and life insurance? Is this only a concern for software developers?
I had a coworker at a previous job who often talked about "her family's attorney." I'm like, families have attorneys? I don't think I've talked to a lawyer once in my life.
Honestly, I think that about 1/3 of the value I get from my lawyer is the power of his letterhead.
The rest is explaining contracts to me, explaining risks and exposures of things I'm planning to do or that have been done to me, educating me about aspects of law I need to know on a daily basis, and such.
A tiny percentage is helping with large things like selling my business, negotiating major contracts, defending me against legal attacks, and that sort of thing.
I gather the version of that I did get was the middle-class version—which some others didn't get and have a similar "wait, that's just normal?" reaction as I do to the upper-middle stuff. Like 90% of that's basically credit-related—how credit cards work and how to use them, how to build credit, how to buy a house (generally with a mortgage, so, still basically a credit-related thing), that kind of stuff.
I've noticed similar things when it comes to paying others to do stuff for me. Having a house cleaner come in for the first time was fucking weird. Still is, really. I can't relax, feel like I ought to be helping. Or paying someone to do work on my house that I could do—tiling, drywalling, some light electrical, plumbing, most general home-improvement stuff. It feels gross—I don't think it does for those who grew up with that stuff being normal. I suspect it's a barrier to advancing in business, because those attitudes carry over. Delegation is weird to me. Being someone's boss is horribly uncomfortable. The notion of starting a business and hiring employees to take over stuff I've been doing feels icky and wrong, and no amount of one part of my brain telling another part to knock it off makes that go away.
Responding to a C&D letter from a Fortune 50 company, I would posit, is more like performing surgery than changing your oil. The cost of being wrong is rather high.
Though I've generally been disappointed with the legal services I've hired. Law and medicine seems like most professions, there are some really good practitioners and a lot who are mediocre but have passed the minimum required qualifications, and it's hard for an outsider to immediately spot the difference.
Five years ago I had a catastrophic ankle injury I suffered while running in Moab. Two broken bones, lots of torn ligaments, and otherwise irreparable damage without serious surgery.
I interviewed a whole bunch of surgeons before I decided where to go under the knife. And I don't remember where I got the advice, but someone told me the most important question to ask is: "How many times have you performed this specific surgery (a Maisonneuve fracture repair)?"
I eventually found the Steadman clinic and a doctor who had already performed the exact surgery I needed nearly 100 times. Everyone else's answer was less than 5. Some even answered 0. The surgical clinic I used had signed pictures of professional athletes all over the wall. I found the true specialist, and I'm very thankful that I did.
Even bad lawyers and surgeons are expensive. When you have a bet-the-business legal issue, do plenty of advanced interviewing to make sure that the one you hire has plenty of experience with the exact issue you need help with. If it's not obvious that you've found the right person, keep looking.
This is accurate, in my experience. It's what makes initially finding a lawyer (or doctor, or therapist, or auto mechanic, or etc.) a painful experience. You have to expect to go through a few before you find one that works for you.
Then, when you find one, treasure them for the pearls that they are.
That was the first and last time I ever changed my own oil.
Sometimes you do things yourself because that’s the only person you trust.
But oil changes are one of those “do it yourself once so you understand it and then let Walmart do it” kind of things.
- fill with the wrong weight oil
- not change the filter
- not tighten the new filter adequately, resulting in leaks
- install a very low quality "no-name" filter
- overfill the oil
- overtighten/strip threads on the drain plug.
- leave tools under the hood.
Oil is simple and easy enough that I just get it changed with my inspections. There are things that, even if you're competent enough to monitor and do yourself, is still better getting a second pair of eyes on. That said I wouldn't do jiffy lube or other stop and go oil shops... Too many noobs there where the chance of them effing it up is higher than myself. I once had a tire buldge when I was younger and broke AF, they replaced the wrong tire and I had to drive back to convince them they changed the wrong one (big old bubble in the sidewall), took a bit to convince them they changed the wrong one since they refused to admit fault. Thank God I took a picture before that was clear enough to place the bulb right on the text in the exact same spot.
I'm having similar concerns around my diy for some electrical and gas work. Yeah technically I can do it myself to code, but I'd rather inspect someone else's work and not deal with the liability of fucking it up myself. Just because I can do it doesn't mean I can do it to the level of a quality professional, and I'm now wealthy enough to actually get the pros and not just the journeymen. There's something about paying for quality work that just feels good. So long as you can respect the labor, it feels great and not so weird to hire others.
That said, I've had a few coding projects I've subcontracted in my home due to lack of time to those on roughly equal grounds as myself. It feels a bit weird, especially for tasks with unknown bounds but worth it for the time and schedule savings. I'd rather not wait another 6 months and spend my personal time when I have a laid off friend who just wants some bar cash.
A long time ago, I had a house cleaner come in once per week to do deep cleaning stuff. It was quite a luxury! However, I always spent a couple of hours cleaning the house in preparation for their arrival.
What I've noticed is a shift with age and wealth. When I was young and poor, I had time and energy in abundance and never hired people to do anything for me (excepting for specialized things like medical care). Now that I'm old and more comfortable, I don't have any issue hiring people to do things I can technically do myself.
I look at it this way: whether you hire someone or DIY it, you're paying something to get it done. If not money, then time and effort. I just pay in the manner that, big picture, costs me the least. When young and poor, my time and effort was worth less than actual money. Now, money is often worth less than my time and effort.
Is it worth paying $50 to have the neighborhood kid mow my lawn for me? Younger me would say absolutely not. Current me says absolutely.
You might even get an initial consult for free. You may also be entitled to a free consultation via an insurance, including collective insurances or assistance programs offered through your employer or associations that you're a member of.
Personally, I much prefer the larger firms. In general their work product, responsiveness, and timeliness is well ahead of small firms. They aren't even that much more expensive for some things. Unfortunately I don't know what the retainer $$ would be, if any, for a larger firm.
Open ended matters, like probate, starting an IP portfolio, or response to a C&D trigger a retainer.
i dont think startups should be paying a retainer. You do this only after it's worth the money - ala, you either know your domain is a gray area and is definitely going to require a lawyer.
This has nothing to do with underprivileged people or not.
(I understand folk might take particular issue with that last as part of "risk reduction", but I hope that doesn't detract from the earlier parts of the strategy)
Q: is the locksmith for you getting into other people's stuff, or keeping people out of your stuff? Wondering if we're going for a trifecta here.
But, generally speaking, a quick consult and having a lawyer write a response letter is a few hundred dollars. Let's ballpark it as $300-1000, depending on the nature of the case. Now, that's assuming that the company that sent you the C&D doesn't sue you. If they sue you and you go to court, the lawyer fees go up quite a bit and become pretty much impossible to ballpark (though I'm sure someone has tried).
Having a lawyer on retainer isn't really necessary. It might be something you do if you're a business that doesn't have a lawyer on staff, but you want access to a lawyer's time when you need it. For most regular folks, I can't imagine setting up a retainer until you need to engage a lawyer for a case and want to guarantee their time.
Also, I've been working with him for so long (including on a few nontrivial things like selling companies) that he often doesn't charge me at all for trivial things.
Another tip. Hire an attorney who will teach you how to do this effectively. A simple rule of thumb is to consult with an attorney when you don't understand something. A good attorney will walk you through the issue, explain the possible ramifications, and (most importantly!) show you the standard response(s). Next time you can do it yourself. Also, you'll ask more focused questions the next time a novel issue pops up on that topic. That also saves money.
In summary, think of your attorney as a mentor not a robot to provide legal advice.
For any functioning system, ultimately a business owner will need to decide (formally and explicitly, or informally and implicitly) what risk they're willing to accept to proceed.
What you're saying I think is that you should be informed enough to have an intelligent conversation with your attorney, and be able to make decisions on what risk they point out you're willing to take, and/or how you can mitigate it without just avoiding/shutting down?
Man I wish the leadership team at the last startup I did understood that. They were too chickenshit to do anything their lawyer cautioned them against, and as a result we took no risks and got nowhere.
They know more about how this stuff really works than you or I ever will, and you won't be able to judge what risk you're really taking without that knowledge.
But, if I were operating "without a net" like that (which I would never do!), and I really felt that the C&D was about something I wasn't doing wrong, I'd be inclined to ignore it. There's chance that you'll end up being sued, though, so you should be prepared for that possibility. That means you'll need an attorney anyway, and it will cost more than consulting one about a C&D to begin with.
That's really the key. I used to work for a very small company that happened to have an attorney as one of the owners (there were a lot of cooks in that particular kitchen!). One day he came to me with a letter from a large RAM manufacturer demanding payment for a license on some technology I don't even remember. His only question was "do we use anything they make as far as you know?"
"Nope."
"OK. It's just a fishing expedition." Balls up the letter, throws in the trash and walks away.
Now whether it's a good idea to sue without an attorney, I have no idea. I genuinely don't.