Ask HN: Law firm targeting Startup Community | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Law firm targeting Startup Community

11 pointsnosuffix9 comments

Hi All,

My friend and I are considering starting a law firm in the Bay Area that would target the startup community. Both of us are young lawyers in our early 30s with experience in patent law and business law. My personal background is with business law, business entity formation, and real estate law. My friend is a member of the patent bar with a CS Bachelor's Degree. Both of us have extensive tech background. We are also thinking about bringing a partner on board to handle immigration cases.

So, basically, the law firm would offer 1) patent services, 2) business entity formation services, and 3) immigration services. We think that immigration practice would fit in well because many tech companies are looking to bring in foreign talent on work visas.

This would be a big move for both of us, so I wanted to see if the HN community could give us some feedback. Assuming that we can provide competent and reasonably priced service to the tech community, would this be something start up companies would be interested in? Our network in the startup community isn’t very broad either. We believe that we can provide excellent service that would generate referrals, but at the beginning, do you have any suggestions on how to generate clients?

Any ideas would help. Also, if you guys think that this is a really dumb idea that would never work for some reason, please let us know as well. My main concern is that the kind of companies we would like to target wouldn’t consider us because they would rather go with a more prestigious, larger firm. I fervently believe that we can provide the same, and probably higher level of service, to our clients because of our small size and our tech backgrounds. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that other people will see it that way.

Thanks for reading!

My suggestion is to go somewhere that isn't in the Bay Area. Tons of other places - like D.C. and Austin - are seriously hurting for good startup focused lawyers that aren't huge (Cooley) or just word of mouth.

My suggestions are to start small with a web portal that has all the docs you need to get started or to quickly catch up if you are about to close financing. From there you can add your personal services.

For example, there is a lot written about term sheets but significantly less written about Note Purchase Agreements and Promissory notes. Even less is written about when you need to file a Part D and your Blue Sky provisions etc...

If you could build a dead simple interface that walks you through the documents you need sequentially and piecemeal like:

1. Incorporation template and best practices 2. Corporate bylaw template and best practices 3. Board appointment template 4. Term sheet template etc...

With on call (paid) help, you guys would do more than anyone has so far and clean up.

Its not a bad idea, there is a need for qualified and solid counsel which understands technology at a reasonable fee. The problem will be how you reach the startups that can afford to pay the rates for a successful firm. A VC or Angel backed startup will likely have heavy recommendations to use a proven and known firm that has dealt with the issues of venture backed startups. So you would need to break into that network to be successful there (maybe you already have).

Personally, I'd say immigration, while reasonable, is not the first thing on a early startup's mind. Series C or later more likely, but early on its about setting things up, corporate protection, partnership agreements, investment documents, patents, contract setup, negotiations, SaaS terms, license agreements, tax issues and general corporate house keeping. Immigration is pretty darn far down the list at first.

That's a good idea, I really like it. One thing to think about though (which I'm sure you're already very aware of) is that lack of money a startup might have, and the prohibitively expensive process of filing for a patent.

This is a question a lot of startups have to make. Should I protect my product for what could cost over $10k, or should I use that $10k to put into marketing, or focus being the first to market with my product, or any other of the 100 things a startup company may want to do.

Obviously you wouldn't _just_ do patents. It's just something I've seen people think about and just say "nah, not worth it for the money", especially when you couple that with the risk of finding your idea is totally no novel or inventive after spending $2k just on your first search.

I would avoid using the phrase "target the startup community".

Including immigration law in your practice would be amazing as a small firm, usually a founder can't get that in-house until you've moved up the food chain a bit. As with everything else, create a compelling product, and a fitting pricing strategy and you'll likely do well. If you can disrupt the way founders have to pay for legal while providing quality service, I'll refer every other founder that I know.

My thought: there is a niche between Clerky/Legalzoom and a full blown lawyer. That niche is presently unfilled.

Clerky cofounder here - a lot of companies actually use our software in connection with a lawyer, and we're adding a lot of new features to support that use-case :)

I have been doing exactly that. It's not bad, much more suitable for startups than Legalzoom. But honestly I can see the potential for it to replace more than just standard incorporation. It could probably do most or all of an equity round, at least at the seed level where terms tend to be fairly standard (series seed/AA with protective provisions, etc.).

Not everyone wants to use notes, and not all investors are comfortable with them. This is particularly true of overseas investors who may not be comfortable with something "new" combined with the complexities of international law or their local tax codes.

Seattle has a small startup community and its own startup lawfirm: http://www.sophoslaw.com/ . Maybe you could learn something from them?

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