Posts tagged as:

law

Five-minute general counsel: incorporate a tech startup

12 October 2009

Another LinkedIn user asked about how to structure a startup that would be a typical VC-funded software company. Here’s my edited answer: As someone who’s represented dozens of startups, closed probably 100 venture deals, and cleaned up too many small companies to count, there is in fact a right way and wrong way to do [...]

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Five-minute general counsel: should I incorporate?

9 October 2009

People often ask about what entity they should choose for their new business, not knowing that the real first question is the one they skipped over without even realizing it. Should you incorporate? Short answer: you should probably just buy insurance instead. Entity types to consider include the corporation (with S- or C- taxation), limited [...]

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Five-minute general counsel: Can you incorporate me?

9 October 2009

Here’s another common question I get: I’m onto a new startup idea.  How much would you charge to incorporate?  Do you have any advice as to where to incorporate? Here’s my usual answer: I’ve done this sort of work for companies under firm quotes of $2000 + state filing fees for a full incorporation package, [...]

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Five-minute lawyer: How to form a nonprofit

9 October 2009

I regularly find people asking this question: How do I form a nonprofit? What most people mean and want is a charitable organization that satisfies the requirements of IRC 501(c)(3), which gives donors assurance that their donations will be tax-deductible. To set up a charitable organization, you generally run through the following steps: 1. Determine [...]

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Five-minute general counsel: licensing audits

8 October 2009

Kat Shoa asked about licensing audits on LinkedIn: How do you know if your IP licensees are paying you properly? I sat on a presentation about royalty audits today and think it’s a fantastic to collect due royalties – wrote about it here[.] But I’d be interested to know what other methods are used to [...]

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Reconciling insurance laws with the free market

17 August 2009

This editorial at the WSJ talks about some commonly advanced alternatives to  current health-care/health-insurance reform legislation. As a law student, I took a whole class on insurance law; I practiced insurance defense law (in mass torts, not individual personal injury cases); and I’ve studied the economic principles relating to insurance law (in fact, I keep [...]

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Why do legal opinions matter?

12 August 2009

In a recent post referring to Ted Wang’s “simple series A” proposal, I noted that I would separately discuss legal opinions. Non-lawyers, and lawyers new to transactional practice, have probably never really heard of a legal opinion or what it does. Briefly, the legal opinion letter is a carefully prepared document that is designed to [...]

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How to use venture capital “check the box” forms

12 August 2009

Writing about Ted Wang’s “simple series A” reminded me of this idea I came up with years ago. One alternative to drafting that I’ve always liked: “check the box” forms.” During any moderately stable period in Silicon Valley, certain terms become “market,” meaning that there’s little real dispute about them in substance and only some [...]

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Will VCs adopt a “Simple Series A?”

12 August 2009

This article on a simpler approach to smaller Series A venture capital financings was written by Ted Wang, a partner at Fenwick & West, a well-known Silicon Valley law firm. Caveat: Ted and I worked on a deal several years ago where he represented the investors and I the company. So, my opinions of Ted’s [...]

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How to build your business during slow times

24 March 2009

This recent Seth Godin post was another timely suggestion from Seth. (My probable #1 reason for subscribing to his blog is that he seems to really have a finger on the pulse of what is going on, with timely, succinct, no-fluff posts on issues that are popping up for me in the days right before [...]

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