If you are on a tight budget and unsure when you actually need to use an attorney, this episode is for you! Setting your business up ahead of time to be protected is the best course of action and if you have more time than money, you can DIY. However, there are times when you need to protect yourself with a lawyer, so here you go!
In this episode:
- Be proactive
- When to hire an attorney
- Waiting until it’s too late.
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Do you need help creating protections for your podcast? Send me an email at andrea@andreasager.com for more information.
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Disclaimer:
The Legalpreneur Podcast is advertising/marketing material. It is not legal advice. Please consult with your attorney on these topics. Copyright Legalpreneur Inc 2022
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Episode 212: When Do You NEED a Lawyer? Transcript
Andrea: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Legalpreneur Podcast. I’m your host, Andrea Sager, founder and CEO of Legalpreneur, Inc. As a serial entrepreneur and someone that works exclusively with small business owners legally protecting their business, I’m dedicated to covering common legal issues faced by business owners, providing you with the business knowledge you need to catapult your businesses growth and showing you just how some of the world’s most elite entrepreneurs have handled these legal and business issues themselves in true attorney fashion. The information in this episode is not legal advice. This is for informational purposes only, and you should always consult with your attorney before implementing any of the information in the show. Hey there. Happy Monday. Welcome back to another episode.
Andrea: [00:00:49] Of the Legalpreneur podcast. So we’re going to chat about when do you need to hire an attorney? So at Legalpreneur we try to provide all the resources that you need as an entrepreneur to save as much money as possible. But there are times where you do need to hire an attorney. So that’s what I want to cover today. Before we get into it, you guys dream bigger is like six weeks away. If you have not got your ticket already, run, don’t walk there 50% off still. But in a couple of weeks at the end of August, prices are going up. You will not be able to get that 50% discount. So get them now. We are having so many amazing speakers. Allie Webb. Danielle Canty. Chris Harder, Pauleanna Reid, Whitney Lee, Lizzie Hoeffer. I’m like spitballing here, I’m trying to remember everybody, but there are so many amazing speakers like literally the world’s most elite entrepreneurs. Co-founder of Drybar, Ashley Webb, co-founder of Boss Babe, Danielle Canty. Chris Harder, my mentor, Lizzie Hoeffer, she’s the number one female loan officer in the freaking country. You guys. I am so pumped to have all these amazing world class speakers and you have an opportunity to see them. To meet them. For VIP, you can meet them at our VIP mixer. So get your ticket now. 50% off, not much longer. What are you waiting for? And if you are a business owner that sells to businesses, let me know if you would like information on having a booth.
Andrea: [00:02:16] We still have a few booth spots available and I am absolutely giving some discounted rates to women and minority owned businesses. I know how much support is needed with those businesses, so please reach out if this is something that interests you. When do you need to hire an attorney? I like to say you can really hold off as long as possible unless it becomes necessary. But when does it become necessary? So you want to put all the protection in place up front. And like I said, I say this all the time. Everything is figure out so you can absolutely DIY the legal protection if you have more time than money. But if you don’t have a lot more time than money and you’re like, I would just rather hire somebody out than hire an attorney. But I’m specifically talking to those that are on a very, very small shoestring budget. You can hold off as long as possible and hiring an attorney. However, there are certain instances where you absolutely need to hire an attorney. Number one is if you get a cease and desist letter and I’m not just saying a piece like somebody messages you on Facebook or Instagram and they’re like, Hey, stop using my name or whatever. I don’t consider that a true cease and desist unless it comes from an attorney.
Andrea: [00:03:38] If you get a cease and desist letter or a demand letter from an attorney, you absolutely need to hire an attorney. Even if you like settle things, you even like stop doing what they’re saying you’re doing. If they want you to sign a settlement agreement, do not sign that thing without running it by an attorney first. Because I have seen so many people try to handle these things themselves and they were very, very close or some did actually sign things that they absolutely should not have signed. So if you receive a cease and desist letter or demand letter, absolutely. Hire an attorney. With Legalpreneur, we have our month to month option for the Legalpreneur membership. I don’t suggest the month to month option just because often I mean, number one, it’s more expensive than our normal membership. But oftentimes those people end up coming back over and over. I think right now we’re at like 20 or 30% of past members have returned to the membership. So that’s why we did implement the 12 month commitment at a lower price, because we know, hey, you don’t need a quick fix with legal. It’s ongoing. That’s why we make it very affordable and we have the 12 month commitment. That way you can make the commitment to yourself in your business to ensure everything is legally protected. So absolutely. If you get a letter.
Andrea: [00:05:00] Hire an attorney. You can do it through the membership. If there’s something else, if you want to implement the legal protection. Like I said, you can DIY. However, you may want to hire an attorney to do it for you. If you don’t want to take the time to figure things out, everything is figured out. However, sometimes you just want to hire the expert to do it. That’s why there’s attorneys. That’s why we went to law school. But I. I completely understand if you want to DIY. So if you’re implementing the proactive protection, I would say that is more figurative and doable on your own than if you do actually receive a letter. Now there is another thing that can I mean, there’s many, many things that can happen. I’m just referring to the most common things that can happen with business owners, online business owners, specifically. And another issue is if you get a takedown, whether it be a trademark takedown or a copyright takedown online, typically you receive an email saying, hey, this is getting removed or this got removed from your account, maybe your account gets taken down. If it’s just the takedown itself and they removed some content, you may not necessarily need to hire an attorney. Maybe you can counter the request or the takedown and talk to the other party. Maybe they can retract it. But if your account gets removed, something bigger gets removed than just like a post or something like that.
Andrea: [00:06:26] You probably do want to hire an attorney because you want to make trying, especially if you want to try and get your account back. That’s something that you definitely want to hire an attorney for. I’ve had many people lose their Instagram accounts. They lost their Facebook account or group with tons of people in the group or tons of followers. So no matter what happens online, if you’re not sure how to handle it on your own, absolutely hire an attorney. And these things don’t have to be that expensive. Like, of course, when you’re proactive with the legal stuff, it’s a lot less costly than if you were to spend money to fix these legal issues. However, I understand some people just don’t know that they need to implement these practices. From the beginning and be proactive. And so you have to spend the money fixing these issues. But if you spend the money to be proactive and set up a good, solid legal foundation in your business, you’re going to spend less money up front. Then the amount of money you would spend in the long run, fixing the legal issues, responding to a cease and desist letter or trying to get your accounts back or whatever happens, you’re going to spend more money in the long run. Now, if somebody is infringing on you and you want to send a letter, you want to do something.
Andrea: [00:07:48] I’ve talked about this before in a couple of episodes, but I’ll touch on it briefly here. Should you hire an attorney to enforce what you have or should you go the DIY route? It’s completely up to you. Depends on where you are financially, the things you can do first. If you don’t want to hire an attorney yet, you can reach out to the other party and say, Hey, you’re infringing on my copyright or my trademark, whatever it is. Just make sure you actually know what it is and you can explain it correctly, because if it’s if you don’t explain it correctly, they’re just not going to take you seriously. If you reach out and they take it down, great. Nothing else needs to be done. But if they’re like, show me your registration or whatever, you’re not an attorney. If they just push back, then you can submit your either your own takedowns or at that point, I would bring in an attorney to send a cease and desist letter. You don’t want to sit on these things. So sometimes I’ll have a client that comes to me and like, Hey, what are my options here? And I’ll tell them they’re like, Oh, I’ll just wait and just see what happens. But if you wait too long, you may lose your rights to actually pursue them later. So there are things in place like if a bigger business knows about this smaller business and they’re kind of just waiting to see what happens.
Andrea: [00:09:02] Will If that smaller business then gets bigger and the bigger business wants to go after them, if it’s been too long, they can’t do anything because they should have done something from the beginning. It’s on you, the older business or the bigger business to enforce what you have. So don’t wait too long. And you’d be surprised at how. I won’t say cheap, but it’s it’s not as expensive as you probably think it is. So to send a cease and desist letter, I’ve seen fees range from 250 to $800 plus wide, wide range. But of course, in the Legalpreneur membership, you get your 15% discount. Number one thing. You guys just don’t put the legal stuff off. Just be proactive. Protect yourself. Bring an attorney in when it’s necessary. But there’s still a lot you can do on your own. If money is tight, if you’re on a shoestring budget. I completely understand. But just get it done. All right, I’m out. This week we are at podcast movement in Dallas. If you are there, come say hi. We will have our booth, the Legalpreneur booth. I would love to see you in person. Introduce yourself and I’ll see you in Dallas. If not, hopefully we will see you in October in Phoenix. Actually. Bigger. All right. I’ll see you next time.
Andrea: [00:10:23] Here at Legalpreneur, we’re committed to providing a supportive legal community for all business owners. I know how scary the legal stuff can be. If you found this information helpful, I would be so grateful if you could share it with the fellow business owner. And quite frankly, it doesn’t cost anything to rate, review or subscribe to the show. Your support helps me reach more listeners, which allows me to support more business owners in their entrepreneurial journey. Have any questions or comments about the show? Feel free to drop me a line on Instagram, I promise. I read all of the messages and comments and if you want to be a guest on the show or know someone that would make a great guest, simply fill out our application form and a team member will reach out if we think it’s a good fit. I’ll see you in the next episode.
