Every year, more and more businesses are set up. In this day and age, people are far more likely to decide to run their own business rather than work for someone else. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world has seen even more of a boom in start-ups. People are opting to work for themselves, doing something that they want to do.
When starting a business, there is so much to think about. What should you do? How should you do it? These questions can take up so much time and even put you off from taking the plunge and starting your own business. But, don’t panic!
There is so much help out there, from legal assistance to marketing help. In this article, you will find out the importance of legal assistance in protecting your business from external harm. This is something that may be very worrying to you, so read on to find out everything you need to know.
Running your own business
Running your own business means working super hard. Not only do you need to come up with a superior product or service to sell, but you also need to work out how to sell it, make money, employ people, and protect it. In fact, coming up with the initial idea may be the easiest part!
For ease, let’s suggest that your business is selling a product that you have created or designed. You need to make sure your product is legal to sell, not copied elsewhere, and not stolen or sold by others. That’s a lot to think about! Luckily, there are plenty of experts available to offer a helping hand.
What legal assistance is available?
There are thousands of experienced legal assistants, lawyers, and advisers available to help you get your business off the ground. You can click here to see just a few of the ways that a lawyer or legal team can help you when getting a business off the ground and, most importantly, protecting it. These professionals can be hired to work in-house or as external lawyers, offering advice and protection from their own firm – which is a more common option.
Some of the most important ways that a law firm can help you are detailed below. They may not all seem immediately relevant to your company but are all worth reading anyway. You never know when any kind of legal assistance may come in handy.
Get a patent
If you have designed a unique product to sell to the public or to a specific industry, you certainly need to look at protecting it with a patent. A patent is a legal document that states exactly what the design is, who designed it, what makes it unique, and what parts of it are protected. Patents are extremely important if you have designed a product with a specific USP that you don’t want other people to copy.
If you do not patent your product and its uniqueness, you run the risk of big companies spotting what you’ve done and copying you. With their money and expertise, they’d probably undercut you on costs and price you out of business. Seek legal advice on patents before taking your product to market.
Trademarks are key
Similarly, you need to seek legal advice regarding trademarking your branding. A trademark protects your brand identity and – once again – protects it from being copied. Other people may see what you are doing and think about making a copycat brand or product. This is quite common with small businesses.
If you have a trademark, however, anything that copies your brand too closely can be flagged. A good legal team will not only help you get your trademark set up, but they will also closely monitor any competition that enters the market, helping you to challenge anyone who gets too close to copying your branding or name.
Copyright your products
Copyright is similar, again, to both of the above. However, it is more targeted towards creative, literary, musical, or artistic ideas. Basically, copyright says that the ideas in a particular piece of creative work were written by yourself. This means that if someone plays your song, steals your script, or anything else, you are protected by copyright. Once again, a legal team can help instate copyright and also challenge anyone who you feel has broken it.
Legal standards and tests
Back to the creation of new products. If you are selling a completely brand new item to market, it will almost certainly need to meet certain industry standards. For example, a new food product will need to be tested by an industry-trusted laboratory before it can go on supermarket shelves. The same applies to a huge amount of products.
It can be costly and confusing trying to get your product tested in the right place, ensuring you get all the right paperwork and certifications. However, these can be done much easier and with lower fees if you use a lawyer who specializes in this field. They will help you make the connection and ensure that every product you sell is verified as a legal, store-ready product before it ever leaves your warehouse.
Pay and staff
Finally, you need to protect yourself regarding pay and staff. You may think that you have all the legal rights as an employer, but your staff actually have far more rights. If you ever make a mistake regarding pay, sickness, holiday, or anything else, you could find yourself on the wrong end of a lawsuit.
A professional team can help you ensure your contracts are water-tight, protecting both you and your employees. This way, you can employ people safely in the knowledge that everyone is getting a fair deal. The last thing you want is to spend thousands on legal battles later on.
As you can see, there is plenty to consider when looking to set up or run your own business. Finding advice and securing the services of lawyers is essential to protect both your own assets and your business assets. Sadly, there will always be someone looking to extract money from you! But, with the right help, you can ensure this never happens.
