Denver Business Planning Attorney

If you are running a business, you know it takes more than basic management skills to keep everything running properly. You must build good relationships with your employees, create good customer relations, and handle advertising and promotion. You may also have a need for legal advice regarding contracts and trademarks.

In many ways, business planning is like estate planning for professionals. Like estate planning, we work with businesses to manage their valuable assets for the life of the business. Our goal is to make the necessary plans so your business will be as attractive as possible if you decide you want to sell it or possibly leave it to someone. If you’re looking for a Denver business planning attorney, contact our firm online or call (303) 420-2863 to schedule your free initial consultation.

Why Do I Need a Denver Business Planning Attorney?

If you’ve never started a business, or if you’ve created multiple businesses before but you want to make sure you do it right this time, it’s always wise to contact a business planning attorney to make sure everything is organized properly. There are many important elements to starting a business, especially if you’re partnering with another person or group of people. In that case, in addition to the usual complications of the startup, you also have to be concerned with legal issues surrounding ownership, planning, and the decision-making issues amongst yourself and the other owners. We can help you.

Once we understand the goals and fears you have about your business, we will use a variety of business planning tools to address those issues. We help clients with a variety of business planning needs, including:

Startup businesses: Often, small startup business owners are so focused on getting their business off the ground that they might inadvertently skip over some of the necessary legal points.
Setting up entities, including the formation and filing: Setting up the right kind of business entity can be the difference between protecting your personal assets and having all of your assets up for grabs if a lawsuit is filed against you. Depending on the type of business you’re starting and the protection you need, your business planning attorney can help you determine the best way to form the company.
Partnership and shareholder agreements: An experienced business planning attorney will be able to help you execute partnership and shareholder agreements in a legally binding way. The last thing you want is to draw up your own contracts and agreements only to find out years down the road that you made a fatal error and the contracts are not valid.
Registering trademarks: Many businesses will rely heavily upon registering trademarks. While it can be tempting to try to do this yourself to save some money, there are many intricacies involved in searching for and registering trademarks. If you make a mistake, it could end up costing you quite a large sum of money, and you could also waste valuable time.
Buying and selling the business: Anytime a business owner is interested in buying or selling a business, it’s wise to contact a business planning attorney. They can help you review contracts and make sure you’re communicating everything you want.

We also help clients draft and review contracts between business owners and employees, vendors, customers, and landlords, and tenants.

What Does a Denver Business Planning Attorney Do?

In order to know if you need a business planning attorney, it’s important to understand what exactly they do. While this list isn’t exhaustive, it will give you a good idea of what they do and why it makes sense to hire a business planning lawyer.

Protect Your Business: One of the primary things a business attorney does is help you protect your business from liability. This includes protecting your business in the instance that you are sued by a client or a competitor, but it also includes preventing lawsuits in the first place. A business attorney can ensure that you’re doing everything properly and aren’t missing any steps when you set the business up, they can help make sure your employee contracts are valid and enforceable, and they can ensure that you aren’t in violation of any trademarks or patents. Avoiding a lawsuit is as valuable – possibly more – as having a good attorney if you are sued.
Protect Personal Assets: If your business is sued, it’s important that your personal assets aren’t at risk. A business planning attorney can help set up all your business and personal assets in a way that protects your personal finances in the event that your business is sued. Some ways a business lawyer can help you do this is by incorporating your business or setting up an LLC or a trust for personal assets. Once your business is incorporated, it is viewed as its own legal entity separate from you and your personal assets and finances. This means that even if your business is in trouble, you can still protect your personal finances.
Decrease Tax Liability: Another important thing a business planning lawyer can do for you and your business is help decrease your tax liability – and ensure that you are filing everything correctly and setting enough aside for taxes if necessary. This can include starting your business in a certain way or restructuring it once you’ve already started it as a way to decrease your liability. Most business planning lawyers are familiar with state and federal tax laws, which is very important.

How Much Does a Business Planning Lawyer in Denver Cost?

Many people might be interested in hiring a business planning attorney but worry that it is going to cost them too much money. While it can be expensive, if you hire the right attorney or firm, you will undoubtedly save money in the long run by ensuring that you aren’t paying more taxes than you need to and by avoiding lawsuits whenever possible. Litigation is incredibly expensive, so avoiding that is almost always going to mean that hiring a lawyer is worth the cost. Business planning attorneys generally charge an hourly rate. This can vary from anywhere between $150 per hour to $500 per hour, depending on the firm and their experience. Any reputable firm will inform you of their pricing structure upfront so you can decide who is the best choice for you.

Be Proactive

While you might be perfectly capable of handling many of your business issues and decisions on your own, it’s never a bad idea to hire an expert so you can be absolutely certain that you’re doing everything the right way. Instead of waiting to consult with an attorney after something goes wrong, hiring a business planning attorney can be a great proactive step to ensure that your business is adequately protected.

For example, a business planning attorney can ensure that you fully understand all of the anti-discrimination and anti-retaliation laws so that you can behave accordingly. Sometimes, business owners discriminate against employees simply because they don’t know the law. You might know your business, but a business planning attorney is well-versed in the regulations and rules pertaining to your specific type of company, and they can make sure you don’t inadvertently break the rules and create a potentially serious legal issue. This could cost a business and yourself a significant amount of money.

Contact Our Denver Business Planning Lawyers Today For a Free Initial Meeting

At Colorado Estate Planning Law Center, our Denver estate planning attorneys have decades of experience helping small to medium-sized businesses throughout Arvada, Colorado, and the West Denver metro area with ongoing legal support. Throughout our time in practice, we have helped hundreds of businesses with their legal needs, so we understand everything there is to know about running a business both legally and properly. After we determine your initial business planning needs, we will continue to meet with you regularly. It is essential that your business plans always reflect your current situation. We will modify and amend your plans when necessary. To schedule your free initial consultation with an experienced Denver business planning lawyer, contact our firm online or call (303) 420-2863.