People in business are now faced with the ‘opportunity’ to create business forms using do-it-yourself kits available in books or through the internet at a cost that is a fraction of what a competent and experienced business attorney would charge for a tailored and one-on-one service for a client. And often the ‘product’ of the do-it-yourself kit resembles large parts of the tailored product. So why hire an attorney for one-on-one service and pay ten times or twenty times more? For these reasons:
forming a business entity is “serious business” often having serious “side effects”not different in impact from the “side effects” of a medicine taken based on a television commercial rather than consultation with a doctor. While the words in the typewritten pages of the business documents can be important, more important may be the consultation with an experienced business attorney who can
--- suggest and then follow up with ‘minor’ variations in the documents which are critical to a particular client’s needs,
--- OR point out corollary or ‘neighbor’ issues which the client ought to consider, such as aspects of the planned relations with business co-owners or the impact of laws not directly related to the business formation, which the client or the do-it-yourself services will never consider;
it is those subtle parts of the one-on-one attorney’s document, tailored to what he or she finds to be unique aspects of a client’s needs, which can make all the difference to a client.-- a difference similar to the different meanings of “working hard” versus “hardly working.”
A significant part of my work, much more time consuming and hence fee-producing than initially forming businesses, is ‘curing’ or ‘repairing’ the problems of clients who formed a business without competent attorney advice and follow-up. These ‘cures’ and ‘repairs’ often involve
--- dealing with federal or government agencies (such as the Internal Revenue Service) which get involved because of defects in structuring of the business form;
--- dealing with a dispute between the business co-owners or their customers or suppliers over situations which should not have arisen had the business been formed with attention to a good attorney’s advice.