r/business • u/Dedhso_rupiya_dega • 1d ago

Legal Headaches of Business Owners

I am trying to identify legal pain-points that slows you down and ways to solve them:

  • What regularly frustrates you in day-to-day operations from legal standpoint?

  • Are there solutions you wish existed but currently don’t?

It could be anything- from cumbersome contracts & compliances to finding a lawyer who “gets” startups?

Share your legal horror stories; your insights will help shape solutions.

4 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

4

u/Mountain_Captain231 1d ago

HR - constant issues. Lawyers are ready to sue over hr compliance for clients. Usually the lawyers don’t charge just get half of the settlement.

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u/Dedhso_rupiya_dega 1d ago

So, it’d be great to get lawyers that charge a lump-sum amount and not a % of the settlement? Honestly, doesn’t that depend on the arrangement you have w the lawyer (which is quite subjective)?

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u/SaintMichael415 1d ago

What he is saying is that HR compliance (wage payments, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, etc.) lead to lawsuits from employees. It doesn't matter if the employee can't afford it because plaintiff's attorneys work on contingency. The employer doesn't have a say in how a plaintiff hires a lawyer.

Work from home has all but killed sexual harassment practice. Like how Uber killed DUI defense.

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u/Larvea 1d ago

The cryptocurrency landscape is awful, lots of things can go wrong here, and you can rarely find a lawyer who "gets it". This is why I stopped investing into Crypto start-ups, it's just too big of a headache.

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u/Dedhso_rupiya_dega 1d ago

Crypto is tricky indeed. Lawyers w tech background somewhat gets it.

DM? I’d love to get into details.

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u/CPG-Distributor-Guy 1d ago

I often run into an imbalance. Your legal team, advisor, or any other version you hire proactively will always error on the side of caution and gum things up, too an extreme level. Even more so in a startup world. Sometimes, having intent in a document but not every small possibility hammered out is good enough; the people you will end up litigating against would have still sued even with an iron clad contract longer than a CVS receipt.

Have some set standards that need to be in your contract language, and keep it short enough to be processed quickly. We had a saying at some startups I was at "don't be the reason we lose a sale today".

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u/Dedhso_rupiya_dega 1d ago

What you are saying is a common grievance of many businesses, but one which lawyers don’t agree too. In my experience, it’s a never ending debate.

Issue you highlighted: lengthy documentation, takes too much time to negotiate, possibility of losing deal.

Possible solution: standardisation of documents. [Certain companies tried to do it. Example- OneNDA did it for NDAs, but not every company in the world is open to use such standards.]

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u/everandeverfor 1d ago

Legal needs are typically reactive, not proactive.

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u/Dedhso_rupiya_dega 1d ago

I politely disagree. A business’s compliance requirements are of continuing nature, so are contracts. If a business waits for a legal bomb to go off before taking the required measures, it’s a definite cost you are sitting on.