When you’re starting a new business, it’s important that you have a good grasp of the law to ensure you don’t find yourself in hot water later on down the track. We cover general and intellectual property law in our Small Business Management course, and we’ve also published a couple of posts recently that related to the common types of agreements and clauses within those agreements that you’ll encounter when you’re in business.
It’s always a good idea to get a lawyer to look over any contract you decide to enter into, but that can also get expensive, particularly if you’re business may rely on many licensing or distribution agreements.
Standard Templates
Some businesses in this situation have a lawyer nut out standard agreements that they then use as a template for each of their clients and customers. This arrangement is much cheaper than if you were to have your lawyer draw up each individual licensing or distribution agreement, and if your business has certain requirements, it would ensure you’re protected.
As an even cheaper option, you could also purchase a standardised template from a legal template site. These are great options for small business that’s aren’t highly specialised – plumbers, retail shops, etc – and who employ staff or need other standard contracts, where the variability is at a minimum.
Get a Lawyer’s Opinion
Most ‘templated’ legal documents can be downloaded for a fee, but there are even some online services that allow you to create common legal documents for free, though we strongly recommend you have these checked over by a lawyer. Some other online services offer a full suite of documents for a low monthly fee, but again, we still recommend that you have these checked by a lawyer.
Unless you’re well-versed in the law – and by that, we mean, used to practice it – you may never be able to avoid bringing in the cavalry, though you can defer it for a while, depending on the online tools you use.
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As a business owner, a good working knowledge of the law, your legal rights and the rights of your customers or clients is a must. Visit our website for more information on the General and Intellectual Property Law module of our Small Business Management course or enrol now.
