What do you want your corporation to be – an athlete performing at its peak potential, or a couch potato just trying to not die from a sudden heart attack? The word “corporation” comes from the Latin word corpus, or body. To incorporate is to create a “body” of sorts. A corporation is an entity created by the law to have certain legal rights and responsibilities like real people do. It is the legal embodiment of your business. This “body” has health needs just like a physical body does. There are three tiers to this. First is the emergency medicine – when your corporation has had the equivalent of a heart attack (perhaps a major lawsuit filed against it?) you rush it to the ER in hopes of rescuing it from imminent peril. Then there is the preventative medicine tier, analogous to going to see your doctor and taking your prescribed medication. On the third tier is optimizing the body’s well-being though the equivalent of a healthy diet and exercise.
Our goal at TW&A is to first try to educate small businesses about preventative law in a down-to-earth, legalese-free, easily understandable format, but also to take that one step further – to suggest ways to use your policies and procedures to grow, be more successful, and not just survive but thrive as a company.
There are never any guarantees that your company won’t ever be sued, but there are ways to minimize chances and to have good defenses to get rid of suits early on. To grossly generalize, small businesses tend to be paranoid about getting sued; big businesses, not so much. Why is this? First, big businesses have policies and procedures in place. Second, big businesses generally accept that legal fees are a cost of doing business. Third, big businesses can afford to lose a lawsuit here and there. A single lawsuit could completely wipe out a small business. Fourth, in a small business, folks are generally busy doing what they do best – doctors are seeing patients, plumbers are fixing pipes, marketing firms are designing advertisements. With a staff of 10 people you probably do not have one person to spare to think about these things.
As a small business owner, it is absolutely essential that you do these four things:
- Make sure you are properly incorporated and respect the corporate form.
- Have insurance
- Have an Employee Handbook
- Establish a relationship with a lawyer or firm you’re compatible with
At TW&A, we can help you with all of these other than the insurance. We invite you to come and interview us! We think you’ll find that we have the experience and expertise you need while also being personable and easy to work with. We want to help you succeed. To contact our law office, call (706) 621-4665, or contact us by e-mail.
