Business Status: Pre-Venture, Startup, Existing

This workshop is for entrepreneurs, start-ups, and existing growth companies, who seek legal information that may impact owning and operating a business. Nancy Fallon-Houle, small business owner herself at Velocity Law, LLC (www.velocitylaw.com) is an experienced business attorney for 25+years. Nancy will cover the following topics in this two-hour seminar, presenting overviews, hot topics, tips & tricks, common mistakes, and landmines.

• Considering the Non-Compete Agreement with Your Former Employer
• Who Owns the Intellectual Property in Your Business?
• Choosing a Name, Name Searches, Trademarks
• Research the Industry - Is It a Viable Business?
• Business Filings & Licenses
• Sole Prop. vs Corp. vs LLC
• Business Structure and Formation
• Legal Corporate Formalities
• Avoid Piercing the Corporate Veil
• Forming Business With Partners
• Worker Classification – Employee (W-2) or Contractor (1099)?
• Website Use, Cross Links, Email Newsletters, Spam
• Use of Technology: Efficiency, Disaster Recovery, Cyber Security
• Due Diligence – On You, On Others
• Professional, Prepared, Organized Image - Legal Ducks in Row

2nd Hour - Existing Businesses; Growth Companies

• Noncompetes with Others to Protect Your Business
• "Defend Trade Secrets Act" - Notices - New Law 5/11/16
• Name Searches and Trademarks When Adding Products
• Conflicts of Interest & Disclosure Conflicts
• Contracts – Tips, Tricks, Landmines
• Adding or Removing partners
• Shareholder Agreements
• Employment Law Highlights
• Compensating Employees
• Long-Term Plan to Sell the Business
• Raising Equity Capital from outside Investors (If time permits.)

First Hour: Focuses on entrepreneurs who are thinking of starting, about to start, just starting, or recently started, their business.

Second Hour: Focus will shift to currently operating small businesses and growth companies (“Small” by US government criteria, means under $25 million in revenue, but any size business owners are welcome.)

Feel free to attend for the full two hours, or parts of either hour, come and go with your interest in topics. Topics will be presented generally in the order listed here, for your time planning purposes. Second hour may start a little late, this is dependent on the amount of participant questions from the first hour. Seminar may last for more than two hours.