Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What Start-ups Should Know About Hiring a Lawyer

thedailymuse.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 44 posts

Re: What Start-ups Should Know About Hiring a Lawyer

#21

Post by bigiain »

splittist wrote: post #18

For a non-Valley, non-VC, non-swing-for-the-fences (Sand Hill Road cookie cutter) startup, think about where your risks really lie (who is going to sue you; when; why; and for how much). If you have partners, then having someone walk you through all the 'what if things go wrong' stuff may be useful. If it's just you, then you can even postpone incorporation. As for tax - that's a nice problem to have, but it's not on…

I'm not so sure about the trademark thing. I've just started that process with my partners non-tech new business. Here (in Australia) you can do a bunch of searches online, and enter a trademark application on a government website for $120, and if it;s approved you pay $300 for 10 years trademark protection. Once you've got all your domain name / twitter handle / social media accounts and pages lined up, a few hundred bucks for trademark protection in your area of business seems like money well spent to me, even if all it does is discourage someone from making a claim they've got more rights to a domain name or social media account name than you.

Of course that adice mostly applies to trademarking names which clearly have no existing claimants (or at least none in your area of business) which would complicate things enough to require law firm time to resolve...

Re: What Start-ups Should Know About Hiring a Lawyer

#22

Post by grabeh »

jacques_chester wrote: post #10
sharkweek wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I clerked at a law office while I was in college -- the lawyers there were happy to offer free 30 minute consultations because the conversion rate of the people that showed up for those was actually pretty high. It was a great way to build trust right off the bat and to ensure it was a good fit for a longer term partnership

Exactly. And for the same reason my lawyer above is giving me a fixed-price on the work he's doing. (I think he's nuts for quoting fixed-price on anything legal, but I'm hardly going to say no.)

Surely it depends on the extent to which the time the work will take will change depending on external factors. A fixed fee for a first draft of terms and conditions is very different to a fixed fee for litigating a dispute to trial. I obviously use an exaggerated example to illustrate here but it is fair to say that a fixed fee can simply be a solid estimate of the time a matter will take multiplied by hourly rate (at least that's how we arrived at fixed fee estimates at my old firm).

Re: What Start-ups Should Know About Hiring a Lawyer

#23

Post by joshAg »

t413 wrote: post #3

That's incredible how much a lawyer's hourly rate is. A senior partner >$1000/hour? It's amazing how expensive risk reduction services are that, in my mind, equate to a blame shifting strategy.

don't forget that the hourly rate has to also cover office space rent, paralegals, secretaries, utilities and all the other incidental costs of doing business. Though I bet that most of that $1000/hour still goes to the lawyer.

Re: What Start-ups Should Know About Hiring a Lawyer

#24

Post by jacques_chester »

atirip wrote: post #20
jacques_chester wrote: post #6

Here's what I learnt in law school: Do you have a legal question? See a lawyer. A few hundred dollars now versus an uncapped downside later? You're basically crazy if you don't. Your lawyer and accountant are to your business what a doctor and a dentist are to your body. You see them regularly, they give you specialist advice and they can save you serious trouble if you take their advice. These individuals see more p…

In US certainly, but here's what I learnt living in Europe. You basically do not need lawyer. Ever. You can live happy life and run happy business. Without lawyers, without fear that somebody/anybody can/will sue you of anything. Wthout fear of shady contracts, shady business practicies etc. And even in very rare occasion when somebody decides to sue you and this case goes to court, even then you do not always need a…

I'm in Australia, not the USA. And we're talking about business owners, not private individuals.

Re: What Start-ups Should Know About Hiring a Lawyer

#25

Post by cookiecaper »

yen223 wrote: post #12
t413 wrote: post #3

That's incredible how much a lawyer's hourly rate is. A senior partner >$1000/hour? It's amazing how expensive risk reduction services are that, in my mind, equate to a blame shifting strategy.

Somewhere, some lawyer is probably wondering why it costs $1000/hour to develop what she believes is just a simple website.

Do you actually know a web firm anywhere that will charge $1000/hour? Such a rate is unheard of in software consulting as far as I know. Maybe someone like EDS who has huge public companies in their pockets will charge these rates, but I personally have never encountered it and I don't know anyone who charges it.

The most expensive software consulting I've seen in the wild is $350/hr, and that was for a very specific niche. I know other very specific niche service providers who charge $200/hr.

As I've said previously, I think the fact that most other professionals max out around the rate that the cheapest and least experienced lawyers start shows there's something perverse with the law industry.

Re: What Start-ups Should Know About Hiring a Lawyer

#28

Post by meriksson »

TL;DR: Since dealing with high-end lawyers is often tough, contract someone to do it for you.

At my company we went through a handful of lawyers, mostly from big firms. We were extremely unhappy with the experience, especially since we did not seem to get reasonable value for our money, ours being a very small account for any established law firm.

Eventually we found a solution that was perfect for us. We now work with a freelancing lawyer who caters to startups and is an absolute joy to work with. He does all kinds of stuff on his own, kind of like our own part-time in-house legal council, but the big thing for me is that he can decide when we need some more muscle (i.e. big law firm, specialist in some type of law), and then we pay him to find, subcontract and manage all contacts with other lawyers.

I can not extract anywhere near maximum value from an expensive lawyer - this guy has a much better shot at it. As the CEO, I save a lot of time and anguish by only ever speaking to one lawyer, and the most pleasant one I've met at that.

If you want to get in touch with my legal guy - based in Stockholm, Sweden - ping me and I'll send you his contact information.

Re: What Start-ups Should Know About Hiring a Lawyer

#29

Post by mbesto »

cookiecaper wrote: post #25
yen223 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhere, some lawyer is probably wondering why it costs $1000/hour to develop what she believes is just a simple website.

Do you actually know a web firm anywhere that will charge $1000/hour? Such a rate is unheard of in software consulting as far as I know. Maybe someone like EDS who has huge public companies in their pockets will charge these rates, but I personally have never encountered it and I don't know anyone who charges it. The most expensive software consulting I've seen in the wild is $350/hr, and that was for a very specific…

> Such a rate is unheard of in software consulting as far as I know.

$1000 is not unheard of at all. Yes, you're right, the likes of EDS, IBM, Accenture, etc. are easily charging the upwards of $1k/day. But any decently sized firm (50+ employees) is going to charge roughly that amount. You'd be shocked to hear some of the price tags on corporate website development...

I think this is the overall point. Go for a small specialist who will treat you like a king/queen. You don't need a corporate law firm. There are too many transaction costs that you simply don't need (assuming you're small) or can risk accept not having.

Re: What Start-ups Should Know About Hiring a Lawyer

#30

Post by kryptiskt »

atirip wrote: post #20
jacques_chester wrote: post #6

Here's what I learnt in law school: Do you have a legal question? See a lawyer. A few hundred dollars now versus an uncapped downside later? You're basically crazy if you don't. Your lawyer and accountant are to your business what a doctor and a dentist are to your body. You see them regularly, they give you specialist advice and they can save you serious trouble if you take their advice. These individuals see more p…

In US certainly, but here's what I learnt living in Europe. You basically do not need lawyer. Ever. You can live happy life and run happy business. Without lawyers, without fear that somebody/anybody can/will sue you of anything. Wthout fear of shady contracts, shady business practicies etc. And even in very rare occasion when somebody decides to sue you and this case goes to court, even then you do not always need a…

> Without lawyers, without fear that somebody/anybody can/will sue you of anything. Wthout fear of shady contracts, shady business practicies etc.

That is just not true. Nowhere can you be happy-go-lucky about the contracts you sign. Even where there is a degree of protection for consumers like in Sweden, and I wouldn't just assume that everything will work out fine even then, b2b is very caveat emptor.

> In Europe you can go to court without lawyer and win.

What does "in Europe" even mean? There is nothing unified about the legal systems here, even in basic principles. Navigating the UK legal system is wholly unlike doing it in Italy.

> I did, so can you.

He did, maybe you won't be so lucky, get a local lawyer.

Post reply on HN