Intellectual Property:
For discussion on IP,please visit our KookyPlan page: intellectual property (including discussion on Patents, Copyrights, and much more...)
Startup-Lawyers
Expensive! ...the average legal bills on a venture deal are $20-$30k. Other angel investors gave estimates in the same range.
Ideas to save money during startup:
1. Trade equity for startup legal advice
2. Deferred compensation / contingency basis: http://law.freeadvice.com/litigation/litigation/lawyer_contingency_fee.htm
Table of Contents:
Resources to save money:
Note: Before hiring a start up lawyer,please read this post here:
With the advent of the NVCA model documents collection , resources like the term sheet series, financings (especially early-staged deals) are largely cookie cutter.
More "open source documents": Early stage venture firm Y Combinator which has funded over 102 young startups, has “open sourced” the legal documents that they provide to their startups to use as they seek additional funding beyond what they’ve gotten from Y Combinator. The documents were created with their law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and are available here. The goal, says Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham, is to help young startups avoid at least some of the legal costs associated with that first round of financing. The lawyering fees don't vary much based on the size of the round, and so a significant portion of small rounds can go directly to the lawyers on the deal. Companies are routinely forced to pay the legal bills of the investors, too, making the situation worse.
VENTURE CAPITAL FINANCING DOCUMENTS? link here : A "template" set of model legal documents for venture capital investments put together by a group of leading venture capital attorneys. The model venture capital financing documents consist of:
Term Sheet Archives
link here
Conflict Resolution:
Mediation:
using a mediator to reach an agreement in which both parties have the option of accepting or rejecting. ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) mediation. engage in mediation as an alternative to arbitration or litigation if there are disputes which cannot be resolved by the parties. The advantage of using a third-party agent, is that the agent has expertise in conflict management. These individuals resolve conflicts daily as part of their jobs. Therefore, they are more likely to be familiar with using successful conflict resolution techniques. A third-party agent can remain emotionally detached from the situation. This objectivity brings insight that can help restore emotional balance. A third-party agent also brings flexibility and resources that might be helpful to the resolution, whereas a negotiator might be more limited in this area. A disadvantage to using a third-party agent is that he or she may not care about preserving the long-term relationship between the negotiators. The mediation process is confidential, and the material discussed can not later be used in court if it goes that far. If problem-solving or mediation does not work, then consider litigation. see: http://www.adr.org/ American Arbitration Association ("AAA")
Litigation:
is using a lawyer to defend your rights in the negotiation. This is an application of a rights-based approach to resolve the differences with a third party. Litigation is the process of using a lawyer and the courts to enforce your legal rights within a negotiation. If the parties cannot reach agreement through the use of the mediator, can file a case with the International Chamber of Commerce, and wait for almost a year to have their case arbitrated, and ultimately decided for them, by a panel of arbitrators. see: http://www.iccwbo.org/ international chamber of commerce
Non-compete clauses:
How can you hire employees that already work for a cometitor, but signed a non compete clause?
interesting discussion here: The Noncompete Ruling Won’t Change Anything, Anywhere
Links from KookyPlan
External Links
More sources of information:
(a) www.nolo.com: By far the best law resource on the net. Provides “Law Centers” for free. Law Centers provide free information and advise on various aspects of business. This includes the ones specific to a start up organization.
http://www.nolo.com/category/sb_home.html?t=0030LFNAV03202000 is a good page to start at. This page focuses on Small Business with a number of pages of advise and information on areas such as: Writing Business Plans, Choosing a Business Name, Renting office space, Employment, Taxes etc.
(b) www.law.com: This is another free resource on law on the net. This site offers a great amount of information on limited areas such as Corporate Law, Employment Law, IP Law, Litigation and Tech Law. The information includes up-to-date news and relevant articles.
(c) http://www.entrepreneur.com/Your_Business/YB_Node/0,4507,142-----,00.html: A page out of www.entrepreneur.com. This site lists articles and information very pertinent to an entrepreneur starting out new. Information such as choosing the business structure (incorporation! Or partnership! Or…).
(d) http://www.intelproplaw.com/: This website is dedicated for information and resources on Intellectual Property.
(e) http://www.eff.org/Intellectual_property: A site hosted by EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation, a donor funded organization protecting the fundamental rights). This site offers a good compilation of related links on IP Protection.
(f) Clicks vs. bricks: A bankruptcy comparison Commercial Law Bulletin; Chicago; Jul/Aug 2000; Harry W Greenfield; Jeffrey C Toole
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