Does Your Business Need a Legal Checkup?

?The end of the year is often a busy time for business owners and other individuals. It is easy to let some seemingly less pressing business and personal legal updates get pushed aside until the New Year. Of course, when the New Year starts, different challenges and time commitments can cause people to forget about those basic, yet important, legal matters. So as 2012 begins, perhaps it is time for a legal checkup.

Although every business is different, below are the TOP 6 BUSINESS MATTERS TO BE REVIEWED FOR A LEGAL CHECKUP:

1. Business Entity Form. You should have examined your current business form to determine whether it is still the optimal form in which your business should operate (i.e., corporation, LLC, partnership, etc.). This should also include examining the official records of your company regarding formation and maintenance, including annual minutes and reports, shareholder agreements, and the like. Failure to maintain appropriate records could cause a company to forfeit its privilege to do business within a state.
2. Employment Policies and Practices. During a legal checkup, you should have examined your company’s employment policies and procedures, any employment agreements or non-competes in effect, and your employee handbook. Additionally, Form I-9 compliance and other immigrant employee matters should be reviewed. Child support reporting, employee benefit plans, and workers’ compensation risks and procedures should also be examined to ensure your company is in compliance.  Finally, do your employee policies include how social media and blogs should be used by your employees, so that your company is not being misrepresented on the Internet?
3. Taxation. Tax laws change frequently on the federal, state, and local levels. During a legal checkup, you should make sure that your company is compliant on each level. The monetary penalties associated with non-compliance are severe and could result in personal liability for you as a business owner.
4. Standard Form Contracts.  Any standard customer contract forms, re-seller forms, subcontractor forms, confidentiality and nondisclosure forms, and any other standard contracts utilized by your business should be thoroughly reviewed. Having proper contracts in place with customers makes a significant difference when it is time to collect. If you have concerns, issues or disputes regarding particular agreements with existing customers, vendors, or subcontractors, those agreements should be reviewed as well.
5. Website Terms and Conditions.  Does your company have a website which promotes or sells its products or services?  Does your company’s website allow users to post content or other submissions on the website?  A website’s terms and conditions and privacy policy forms a contract between your company and your users, and if they don’t accurately reflect your company’s business, or are just copied from another website, your company could be signing itself to significant liability.  The legal checkup should examine your company’s website to determine exactly what your company should, and should not have, as its terms and conditions.
6. Intellectual Property. You should have reviewed your company’s trade secret, trademark, copyright, and patent protection practices. Significant time and money is expended in the creation of intellectual property. Proper protection measures should be taken to ensure that your intellectual property does not become part of the public domain. If you have certain trademarks, copyrights, or patents, these should be reviewed as well. If your business collects personally identifiable information whether on its website or otherwise, it is prudent to determine if the proper procedures are in place in terms of collecting and safeguarding this information.

Pepper Law Group offers a comprehensive one-hour legal checkup to determine many of the legal needs of your business.  Schedule a checkup with one of PLG’s lawyers today, and make 2012 the year your business’ legal house is in order.