Legal issues for busy entrepreneurs

Legal Issues for Busy Entrepreneurs Evan Prodromou [email_address] LawyersLounge 27-Sep-2011

Who am I?
Founder, Wikitravel
Founder, StatusNet

Why should you care?
Lawyers write the source code for your business
Legal costs are high
You have to use them a lot

What you need a lawyer for
Incorporation
Funding documents
Employment agreements
IP and non-compete agreements

What you need a lawyer for (cont'd)
Terms of service and privacy policy
Software licensing agreement
Services and consulting agreements
Registering IP (trademarks, copyright, patents)

You will probably...
...have venture funding
...seek tax credits
...have a cross-border business
...license or sell software
...use or include someone else's software
...provide an on-line software service

What does a lawyer do?
Translates your ideas into legal documents
...doesn't create your ideas for you
Advises you of risks or issues
...doesn't make decisions for you
Helps plan for government relations
...doesn't deal with the government bureaucracy
Works for the company
...doesn't work for you
Organizes deal documents
...doesn't organize your business

Who to hire?
Not your family or personal attorney
They're busy
They're kind of conflicted
They probably don't have experience in your area
They really won't mind!

Who to hire?
Someone well-known in the city
First impression important
Ask around
Not someone your investors are using!
#CONFLICT
Someone expensive
Easy; they're all expensive

What to ask for
Venture funding experience
Information technology experience
Web framework != new cancer drug
Cross-border connections
Local references

Top 5 things to do
Incorporate clean and early
Have agreements for all contractors and employees
IP, employment
Keep track of all IP you use or make
software, domains, images, text
Don't work without a contract!
Keep contact info and records
Everyone, everything

Top 5 things not to do
Let legal discussions run on forever
You're the one to make things move forward
Phone, email, chat, think about lawyer unnecessarily
$$$$$$$$
Treat lawyers like private tutors
read up on your own!
Clean it up later
Get paranoid

Open Source legal docs
http://www.seriesseed.com/ Series Seed from Fenwick & West
http://lexpubli.ca/ LexPublica
Http://en.wordpress.com/tos/ Wordpress.com TOS
Mostly for US legal frameworks

Other resources
Venture Deals – Feld & Mendelson
Don't do a deal without reading this book!

Contact
Evan Prodromou
[email_address]
http://evanprodromou.name/

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Legal issues for busy entrepreneurs

by Evan Prodromou on Sep 29, 2011

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Legal issues for busy entrepreneurs — Presentation Transcript