OK, let me start by saying I am NOT a lawyer and this post will not be giving any legal advice. What we will talk through are times you need a lawyer and maybe times you don’t. Let’s start at the beginning, forming you business. For this, many folks think they need a lawyer. But you may not. Search for creating a sole proprietor or LLC in your state and often you can fill out the forms online in a straight forward way for minimal cost. If you want to understand the differences between the types of company registrations you can do some deep research but in the end, for a small company a sole proprietor or LLC is a basic pay through meaning you are the business. This is good because you only get taxed once, though it does mean that all the profit that you pass through is taxed as income. It also allows fewer protections from debtors and liabilities. An corporation, they come in a few flavors, provide more insulation, but the company gets taxed as does your income, so there is in essence a double tax. They are also more complex and I would not advise trying to set up a corporation on your own.
For both of these, let me stress, I am not an accountant nor a lawyer, so if you have more questions, please ask an account and/or a lawyer. In fact, the nuances around these things change regularly so I’d research the above and not take my advice anyway.
So now on to what else you might want a lawyer for. We’ll discuss the needs and uses for a bookkeeper or an accountant in a later post. Also, let me state now, you may not be able to use one lawyer for all things. Most lawyers specialize to some extent. This may mean you need to engage one lawyer for one of the issues to follow but another lawyer for another area.
Beyond forming a business entity, think about any intellectual property you might need help protecting. Think both patents to keep folks from copying you but also around trademarks and copyrights. Many companies use their trademarks, colors, and slogans to evoke meaningful emotional responses from their customers, and you want to make sure yours are protected. The more unique these are, the easier it is to protect.
Some things however cannot be protected. One of the most common but seems to surprise people are recipes. You can often protect the name of a dish, especially if replated to a trademark you have, but the recipe itself is nearly impossible to protect. Additionally if you do want to try and protect your formula, when you go to protect it, you have to disclose the recipe or formula. This is part of the reason the Coca-Cola formula is not patented, they do not want to disclose the formula. The choice is to try to ensure the formula stays quiet verse publishing the formula and then try and go after anyone who tries to use it.
Beyond patents and intellectual protection there are two main areas where you might need to talk to a lawyer in your run the business motions (Run the business motions is simply a complex way of saying doing what you need to do to run your business on a day to day basis. So not in expansion, trying new things, mergers, things like that, but in a day to day, here is what you need to do to keep the lights on and the product moving.) These two main areas may affect you more or less, and they are employment questions and regulatory requirements.
If you don’t have any employees, then employment laws may not impact you as much because much of it focuses on things like paying hourly wages, what insurance might you need, including auto, health, property insurance, and hiring and firing. Understanding the impact of hiring the right people is important. You also need to know what offenses can you, should you, fir and employee immediately, or maybe you need to build a paper trail to show a pattern to be able to let them go. You also need to understand protected classes. Again, I am not a lawyer, so I won’t get into specifics but I want to get your brain thinking about the type of items you might want to consult a lawyer about, who may expand on my list and will be far more detailed.
Regulatory compliance fits right in with this. If you are making food, what health regulations might you need to follow. What about health and safety regulations, especially in any manufacturing process. There are often regulations at both the state and federal level, and they can change quite drastically from industry to industry. Additionally, your industry might have it’s own regulations for things like when you can label a product carbon neutral or organic.
While not daily, there are several areas where it might be good to consult a lawyer or at least have built a relationship with one so when the time comes that you need them they are familiar with you and your company. The first area is contracts. You might need help creating the contracts but then continue to use that same sales, ND (Non-Disclosure), subscription, terms of service, or whatever else moving forward. I would advise though that you don’t make these one and done. Things change, times, change, technology changes, laws change, all of which may lead to the need for revisions to your contracts. You may not need to have them reviewed all the time but setting a regular review might be a good idea. A lawyer can discuss with you the right schedule for review when you create the item in the first place.
The next area is litigation, what happens if someone violates a contract or simply says your product is defective, you are going to want a lawyer who will litigate the case, that is to take it to court, for you. Some lawyers may be able to create the item originally, then be able to litigate around a violation, some will only focus on one of the areas. And you may need yet another lawyer if someone sues your business. It pays to ask early and many of these lawyer, while they may not handle all areas, usually have a network and can recommend someone they trust.
Yet another specialization is taxes. While an accountant might be good for most taxes issues there may be times when you (or your accountant) need to consult with a tax accountant before you do something to understand the tax implications. Tax accountants can also help with things like trusts if you are trying to protect assets once the business has generated them.
This is NOT a complete list. When you talk to a lawyer, take your time. I understand that lawyers charge for their time, and that means you don’t want to engage in small talk for a half hour before getting down to business, it is also not a good idea to rush things as you want to give your lawyer a good understanding of your overall business, so they can give you a holistic solution, which very well might be to suggest other lawyers. Better to invest a few extra minutes and do it right, especially in the beginning, then to skip something and have it come back to bite you in a very costly way later.
OK, for our tool today, let’s talk thermometers. I think this blends well, because what I have found is when I say thermometer, you think I know what a thermometer is and I have one so I am good. But like lawyers, you might need more thermometers then you think. First, you need a decent person thermometer. The ones that measure the forehead and the ones that go in the ear both work well nowadays so go with whichever one you like better. Something like this works fine, it has different colors and can be used on the forehead or in the ear. Fakespot says the reviews are fairly trust worthy so it fits the bill.
Next step is a food thermometer. This is something that you can stick in a steak to see how it’s cooked and the like. This works great for ensuring your meats like chicken and pork are cooked all the way through but can also be good for letting you know if you red meat is rare, medium, or well done. These come in a basic form like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S93EQUK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 which are easy to use. You simply open the oven, remove the lid, and raise the grill cover and stab the meat. Make sure you get into the thickest part. Many times, if it is a larger piece of meat, you may want to stick it in several places.
Then you can have this same idea, but with some extra bells and whistles, and go with something like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07477NMF4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Not drastically more expensive and you can simply stab your food and close the lid, oven, or grill. This is nice for knowing if you are getting close to temperature so you can start your sides when you get close but are not completely finished so that your sides are done at the same time your meat is. This model even has an alarm to let you know when you get a a specific temperature. If you really want to get fancy they make the so they connect to your phone and you can monitor your temperatures from anywhere.
Finally, think about an infrared thermometer like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B1W45TT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I use to for checking the temperature of my cooking oil if I am going to fry something or the heat of my pan when I am reverse searing. If you don’t know about reverse searing, check it out here https://www.jessicagavin.com/how-to-reverse-sear-a-steak/ The other nice thing about the infrared thermometer is you can use it for non-food purposes, like checking brake temperatures or even incandescent light bulbs to see if they are cool enough to touch.
So those are my thoughts on the three good types of thermometers you should have around the house, none of which will break the bank.