Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition, defines this quote as meaning that “a little precaution before a crisis occurs is preferable to a lot of fixing up afterward.” Many people will start a new business in 2017. This quote definitely applies to them.

Very few people starting a business hire a lawyer until they have a legal problem. The best time to hire a business lawyer is before you have a legal problem. It is much easier and more cost effective to have a lawyer provide an “ounce of protection” than it is to solve legal problems with a “pound of cure.”

Ounce of Prevention From the Beginning

An experienced business lawyer can provide you with an “ounce of prevention” from the very beginning of your business. Our lawyers can help you by:
1. evaluating the potential liability associated with your business;
2. recommending the best business structure (partnership, corporation or LLC) for your new business;
3. helping you stay in compliance with any laws that are applicable to your new business;
4. drafting standard contracts for use with customers;
5. making sure collection efforts start the right way; and
6. complying with best practices for hiring employees (drafting employment applications, handbooks, etc.).

Many legal issues that arise in business. As a result, it is important to establish a relationship with a business lawyer. Our attorneys will help you keep legal problems from getting out of hand quickly.

All In For The New Year

In 1865, Attorney General James Speed wrote a letter to his mother Lucy. The letter, quoted in its entirety below, talks of keeping an eye on the future. The sentiments shared apply to those starting a new business or already in business.

31 December 1865
Washington, December 31, 1865

Dear Mother:

This is the last Sunday in the year; if obedient to your precepts & practice, I would run over the things done wrong and the duties omitted, that I might be better able in the coming year to do more and fail less. I am so situated, however, that pressing duties of the hour are of such moment to the future, that I have but little time and little inclination to turn my eyes backward –

“Let the dead bury the dead.” Great questions and great events of great moment to the country & to mankind, and with the shaping of which I have more or less to do, so crowd upon one another, that there is no time for stately & solemn funerals over the dead past. On we must go, and it would be as silly to go forward in the dark with lantern behind, as to be thinking & dreaming of the past just now.

Then “let the dead bury the dead” I am in for the new year and nerved to the work it brings & ever hopeful that an honest and intelligent discharge of duty will, under God, yield pleasant and healthful fruit.

Let Us Provide an Ounce of Prevention

Our goal is to help clients be “in for the new year” and be successful in their business endeavors. If you own a business, or plan to start a business, the business law attorneys at Kennedy, Kennedy, Robbins & Yarbro, LC can help.  Contact us or call us at (573)686-2459. We are here for you when you need us.