Costs of Ignoring Legalities Related to Your Business Disregard for legalities can lead to unnecessary expenses. Too often small business owners make professional agreements with a simple handshake, placing their trust in a friend or acquaintance because they believe it’s easier, quicker, and cheaper than consulting an attorney. Whether you run a regional chain of restaurants, a professional consulting firm or simply rent out a residential property, it pays to […]
Read MoreLet’s say you run a small business, a tutoring company, an auto repair shop, a yoga studio. You’ve done well, but you’re also ready to retire. After much internal debating you decide to sell the business — and immediately you wonder what the potential pitfalls of a sale might be. The last thing you want is for the next owner to sue you. What should you be aware of as […]
Read MoreLet’s talk about a business asset called trademark. Remember President Donald Trump’s mysterious tweet on May 31? It read: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe”. That was it. The internet went abuzz. Every news network covered the cryptic message, its meaning and implications extensively. And the comedy shows had a field day or even a field week. No surprise there. But the stir also reached a federal institution, the U.S. Patent […]
Read MoreLet’s say you’re a small business owner. You just started a little coffee shop on the corner of Hill and Main, or you run the auto repair place that your grandfather founded back in the 1930s. Things have been going well — until, one day, you receive a subpoena. You take a quick look. In addition to the word subpoena, a box on the first page of the document jumps […]
Read MoreDid you know that more than two in five Americans admit to having deceived their spouse about money? That three out of four people who admitted to the behavior say that it has affected their relationship? That 12 percent say it led to divorce? The numbers, which the National Endowment for Financial Education published earlier this year, sound staggering. Yet, as an attorney involved in business and family law litigation, […]
Read MoreThink trade secrets violations, and prominent cases involving big companies may come to mind. There was one where a worker for the chemical company DuPont provided a competitor in South Korea with information regarding the production of Kevlar vests, and another where research scientists for GlaxoSmithKline in Philadelphia passed on confidential data about drugs to treat cancer to associates who planned to sell the data in China. But big corporations […]
Read MoreHere’s a hypothetical scenario: Anna, who owns a marketing agency, wants to sell her business and retire. She finds a buyer, Herb, who first showed an interest in the agency a while back, when he hired Anna as a consultant to his own firm. Since Herb can’t afford to pay for Anna’s agency in cash, the two parties enter into a loan agreement. Herb will make monthly payments of principal […]
Read MoreA few years ago, a new term surfaced in California: food court. Used as a synonym for the Northern District, it spoke to the fact that courts in the health and nutrition conscious Bay Area were finding themselves inundated in class actions where plaintiffs alleged that healthy sounding food labels mislead consumers. The plaintiffs filed these claims, which often focused on phrases like “100 percent natural” and “no sugar added,” […]
Read MoreWatch any legal drama play out on TV, and you might think that litigation is all about trials. Not so. The most time-consuming and expensive part of any lawsuit is in fact the process of discovery, where the plaintiff’s and the defendant’s lawyers prepare for trial by gathering and exchanging information. In lawsuits involving family-owned businesses, discovery comes with its own set of rules and risks that unfortunately can include […]
Read MoreA family owned business with relatives working side by side on a venture that they believe in can be a wonderful thing. But families, for all that binds them, aren’t immune to disputes. When problems do arise they can easily turn into ugly fights, with the minority shareholders in the company feeling like David before Goliath. What these minority shareholders as well as aggrieved directors need to know is that […]
Read MoreLet’s start with a hypothetical scenario: A friend of yours, the co-owner of a small L.A. based enterprise that produces custom made furniture, asks you to join his company’s Board of Directors. You feel honored by the trust placed in you, don’t see any potential conflict of interest, reflect on what the time commitment might be — a few board meetings a year doesn’t sound too bad — and are […]
Read MoreLet’s start with a hypothetical scenario in which A offers his friend B a job in his newly founded tech company if B is willing to invest in the business. Trusting his friend, B agrees to become a minority shareholder. For a while things are going great. A’s company is growing fast and adding new employees every month, and B likes his work. But after a couple of years B […]
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Owners of family-owned and closely held businesses are for good and obvious reasons concerned about taxes. But sometimes the focus on legitimate and legal tax avoidance causes people to forget about asset protection. This is where a Limited Liability Company or LLC can come into play. Without an LLC, a person’s property would be often owned in an individual capacity or in their living trust. And that can lead to […]
Read MoreLast May, Kevin J. Moore & Associates won a major legal victory for their client, the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalStrs), which is one of the largest pension funds in the world. The historic ruling by the California Court of Appeals for the Second District found that a 20-year possessory interest tax imposed on CalSTRS’ real estate investment properties was unconstitutional. While the impact of this ruling is still […]
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