Zynga, the makers of Farmville and other popular games, was written up in the Wall Street Journal because they chose a rather poor way to consolidate their equity (from early employees). Law 4 Small Business wrote a particularly good blog article, entitled Zynga shows us how NOT to form a company, which focuses on how poor planning in the formation stage of the company sowed the seeds of a costly and embarrassing situation down the road for Zynga.
Of course, given the Zynga logo features a bulldog, it’s all to easy to comment on the negative connotations of that bulldog to Zynga’s unfortunate employees.
Posted in Business Strategy, Legal Excellence
A good blog article just came out, talking about how the big stock photo companies are using sophisticated software to find their images across the Internet. Even if the images have been manipulated, this software can sniff them out. When it does, it checks the owner of the website, where it find the images, and compares it to any license that may have been sold. The problem is, this software doesn’t care how old a website is. They are going after websites that are over 10 years old, as well as new websites. How many people have their receipts from 10 years ago, let alone the individual copies of licenses to use certain pictures they (or their www designer) purchased so long ago?
The blog article is located here: http://www.l4sb.com/2011/ip/images-or-photos-on-your-website-copyright-infringement/
It’s a good and scary read for anyone that has a website. It pays to start thinking about acquiring images more carefully.
Posted in Information Technology, Business Strategy, Legal Excellence
There is a great blog article that was just written for business leaders, owners and entrepreneurs, that provides a “top-10″ list for business owners to consider, as we get close to January 1, 2012, which represents a new fiscal year for most businesses. By thinking about this now — before the New Year is upon us — businesses have a chance to prepare their businesses to save on taxes, change the legal status of their company, change accounting methods, save on expenses, and much more.
This is an easy read, and should be valuable for most small businesses. The article is located at: http://www.l4sb.com/2011/ip/starting-the-2012-new-year/.
Posted in Information Technology, Business Strategy, Legal Excellence
Although it seems simple to join a new partnership, you should be aware of all the risks that come along with it. You need to make sure that you are going to be fully covered and that there are no skeletons hiding in the closet of your new company. Also you want to make sure you are getting the best deal you can get when joining. The new article, Tips for successfully joining a partnership, gives you a few easy suggestions to help you go into this new partnership with your eyes wide open. It is a nice read that will prepare you for a satisfying move to your new company.
Posted in Business Strategy
It’s surprising how little people know about the R-symbol and TM symbol in trademark law. Hiring a trademark attorney or a small business lawyer can help you understand what and/or when you need to use the R-symbol or the TM symbol. You can also learn more about them by reading Law 4 Small Business’ new article What does the R-symbol and the TM symbol mean?. It’s a short read that helps you grasp the concepts and suggests when you might ever have to use them.
Posted in Legal Excellence
Two legal experts in Internet law are putting together a seminar on April 18th, in Albuquerque, from 10am to 12pm.
The topic is “doing business on the Internet,” told from the perspective of your typical brick-and-mortar business. The latest, cutting-edge topics will be discussed, including cloud computing and on-demand computing. Practical advice on how to reduce legal, financial and reputation risks will be discussed.
Learn more at: http://www.l4sb.com/2011/business-law/free-seminar-announcement-moving-beyond-brick-and-mortar/.
Posted in Information Technology, Business Strategy, Legal Excellence
The word “consistency” is an important concept in software development. Much expense is devoted to make consistent user experiences and processes in the software world. The reason for this is simple: inconsistent user interfaces confuse people.
This concept hasn’t caught on quite as well in the general business world (nor in the legal world), yet it is extremely important nonetheless. When someone is inconsistent, at best this can be an embarrassment. At worst, it can bring about lawsuits.
Read more, with the article: Consistency, the key ingredient in any magic sauce.
This is a great read, and provides some suggestions on how to improve consistency within communications and within the business.
Posted in Business Strategy, Legal Excellence
Evergreen clauses work to help lock people into contracts, because people become lax or forget the particulars of a contract. This is great, if you’re providing a business or service to your customers, and you want to lock them into your contracts. It’s not so great, if you’re a customer of someone else. Read more about evergreen clauses, what they are, and what to do about them.
It pays to know about evergreen clauses.
Posted in Business Strategy, Legal Excellence
Sole proprietorships and partnerships suffer a disadvantage when not incorporated. They lose on tax advantages, and they put the owner(s) at financial and legal risk. Read more …
Posted in Business Strategy
I’m proud to announce that I just kicked off a new law firm, called Law 4 Small Business (L4SB), which is focused exclusively on the needs of small and medium sized businesses in the State of New Mexico.
I created this law firm for several reasons. First and foremost, the law firm represents the last 15 years of my background, training and experience. It was a natural direction for me to go. Second and perhaps most importantly, I wanted to try something very different in the legal world. I wanted to create a law firm that actually had a brand. That provided outstanding customer service to its clients. That did business the way small business needs it to get done.
This second reason became an important goal of mine. In talking to a number of business leaders in New Mexico and elsewhere, I found the same reoccurring theme when discussing attorneys: Many attorneys don’t accept credit cards. They are difficult to get a hold of. They aren’t available when needed. It’s difficult to budget how much money you need to spend. And most hated of all, the dreaded “retainer fee,” which tells everyone “I don’t trust you.”
Another goal of mine, in forming L4SB, is to convince business leaders hire attorneys sooner. All too often, I’ve encountered the situation where business leaders or entrepreneurs will wait to hire an attorney until absolutely necessary. In other words, when they are being sued or they have found themselves painted into a corner they absolutely cannot get out of, without the help of a skilled attorney.
I seek to change this. I’m trying to convince people to hire attorneys early. The argument is not dissimilar to that you hear in medicine: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” In the context of law, my argument is that most business people don’t have legal training, and therefore cannot predict the long-term consequences of their actions, especially as it pertains to contracts, agreements, intellectual property, legal strategy and general business and employment law. My hope is that I can convince business leaders, if made easy, affordable and predictable, to involve attorneys earlier in their decision-making process.
We’ll see if this holds true, but in the mean time, please check out L4SB, and tell me what you think. I can really use referrals, advice and suggestions.
Please follow me …
Posted in Legal Excellence, Misc