Member Insights by The Donahey Law Firm

If you’re a Business owner, there are two things that you undoubtedly understand very well. First, even if you’re not in any legal trouble, businesses face countless legal matters that they have to deal with. Second, legal advice can be extremely expensive, so the more you can do on your own, the better.

While nothing can replace having a lawyer to call on for any tough questions that you can’t afford to make mistakes about, there are some great resources out there that can at least steer you in the right direction. Here are ten great legal resources for Business Owners to get you off to a good start with any legal issues your company may be facing.

Small Business Administration

If you’re a small business owner, this is a great resource for you. Their website contains a wealth of valuable information. Whether you’re curious about starting your business, getting a loan, becoming a contractor, or even hiring employees, you can likely find the information you’re looking for on this website.

LegalZoom

According to their website, LegalZoom provides the legal solutions to help you handle a variety of common legal matters for small businesses. They provide services to help start an LLC, form a corporation, file a DBA, and take care of many of the legal requirements related to starting and running a business. LegalZoom takes care of the details so you can focus on what matters most – your business.

Rocket Lawyer

Rocket Lawyer is a great (and very popular) site that helps business owners create legal documents for many different situations. You can try the service free for a week and after that, pay a monthly fee for help creating documents and getting legal advice from a professional. You can consult a lawyer, have documents reviewed, and can even get discounts when hiring a lawyer. Whatever your legal issue is, Rocket Lawyer can help and has become a very trusted name when it comes to legal advice for business owners.

Docracy

Docracy is another site that provides a collection of legal documents and the ability to negotiate and sign your documents online. Document templates are free to download, customize, store, and e-sign.

NOLO

NOLO helps business owners find answers to everyday business questions. They sell do-it-yourself legal books that can be very helpful for business owners. They also provide a lot of free articles that you can look to for help and advice.

Internal Revenue Service

Tax season is not a time that any business owner looks forward to. Taxes for business can be confusing and daunting, especially when trying to figure them out on your own, and this is one area where you don’t want to make mistakes. If you need assistance with taxes, utilize the resources provided by the IRS. They even have a newsletter for small business owners that will notify you of important dates, provide tips to help with tax compliance, and give other tax-related information.

Termsfeed

This site helps you to generate a privacy policy, terms and conditions, cookies policy, EULA, return policies and disclaimers for your website. These are all very important documents for any online business.

Founders Workbench

This website provides access to useful tools to help you start and successfully run your business. You can generate free legal documents, calculate your capital, look through their “deal dictionary” to help you define any legal jargon you come across and may not understand, and more. Whether you need advice when it comes to forming, financing, hiring, operating, growing or protecting your business, Founders Workbench has your back.

upcounsel

For those times when you really do need a lawyer, upcounsel will provide you with access to lawyers that can fit your specific legal needs. They will help to cost-effectively match business owners to legal professionals.

US Patent & Trademark Office

Here you can file your patent, register for a trademark and review intellectual property laws. They also have a wealth of information available on all of the aforementioned topics.

Read 10 Best Law Resources for Business Owners on Columbus Chamber of Commerce.