#190 - Where to start when working with a business lawyer
So, you want to work with a business lawyer. Or at least, you think it’s something you should do.
Where in the world do you start? There are so many different areas to consider when running a business, it’s understandable business owners hesitate to invest their time and money into their legals.
In my opinion, getting your legal documents in order and tailored specifically for your business is non-negotiable - and should be done with a professional. Like I always say: DIY is for Bunnings, not for your legals.
So, let’s explore why you should work with a business lawyer and where to begin when you decide to take the leap.
Begin with the Right Agreements
The first and foremost step is getting your client agreements in order. This includes your client service agreement, client terms and conditions, or even a coaching agreement, depending on what suits your business model. Regardless of the title, what's crucial is the clarity and robustness of these agreements. If you're just launching your services or refining existing ones, nailing this document is vital. Your agreement should mirror the clarity you have around your offerings. Partnering with someone experienced in your industry can uncover insights you might never have considered.
Know Your Processes
After securing your client agreements, it's vital to understand your own processes. How are you delivering agreements? Are they sent via a CRM like Dubsado or merely via email? Do you require signatures? Clarity here ensures that your lawyer can provide accurate advice tailored to your systems. I've navigated these questions thousands of times with new clients, enabling me to deliver the best value.
Get Your Website Documents Right
Once your client agreements are locked down, it's time to focus on your website documents. Right from your website terms and conditions to your privacy policy, these documents serve as a digital fortress for your business. Whether showcasing a portfolio, distributing lead magnets or offering courses, each element on your website demands attention. The terms must safeguard your intellectual property and include necessary disclaimers.
Additionally, have tailored clickwrap terms for purchases made on your site. These are the terms agreed upon when ticking a box at checkout, distinctive from your overarching website terms. This precision sets the foundation for trust with potential clients.
Don't Overlook the Privacy Policy
For businesses collecting personal data, a privacy policy is non-negotiable. Even a simple contact form necessitates compliance with privacy legislation. Your privacy policy needs to transparently communicate what data you're collecting and how it's used or disclosed. This document, a part of a core trio with your client agreements and website terms, reinforces your credibility.
Consider Your Team
As your business grows, so might your team. Conversations with a lawyer often lead naturally into discussions about employees and contractors. You'll need to decipher whether your team are genuine contractors or employees and have the appropriate agreements in place. Contractor and employment agreements ensure clarity and legality in these relationships.
Proactive Steps Are Key
Ideally, you want to reach out to a business lawyer proactively—to set up systems before challenges arise. However, if you find yourself in a pickle, legal help is essential. Once any urgent issues are resolved, focus on building a proactive defence with strong contractual foundations.
I trust this guide makes it more straightforward for you to start collaborating with a business lawyer. Should you want a more personalised conversation, feel free to reach out—whether it's through a message on the contact page of my website or a DM on Instagram. I'm here to help in any way I can!
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Tracey: [00:00:00] I want to talk to you today about where to start when you're working with a business lawyer for the first time. I know there are listeners that sit back and think, I don't know if I need to work with a business lawyer. Maybe I do. Where do I start? What do I do? And the reason I know that is because new clients that reach out to me often share their journey and the process they went through before reaching out. And a lot of the time, part of that was, Oh, I didn't quite know where to start. I didn't know what questions to ask. I didn't know how to start working with a business lawyer or what to start talking about.
So if you're listening and you're thinking, yes, that might be me. I don't [00:01:00] know if I need to work with a business lawyer or even where to start if I think I do, this episode is for you. If you haven't worked with a business lawyer before, if you haven't had your legal documents tailored for your business, then the very first thing to work on with a business lawyer are the legal agreements you have with your clients.
So your client service agreement, your client terms and conditions, your coaching agreement, whatever you want to call it, the title doesn't matter, but it's the agreement that you have in place with your clients. That's the very first place to start. And in order to be able to do that, it's really important that you have clarity around your offerings.
So whether you're a new business and you're reaching out for the first time because you're about to launch your services, or if you're an existing business and you're reaching out because you are refining offers or you're up leveling or you're changing the way you work with your clients, nailing the client service agreement that you have, so [00:02:00] nailing the agreement that you have in place with your client is absolutely vital and absolutely first thing to work on with your business lawyer. So to that, I say, find somebody who has experience in your industry so that you can draw on their expertise, so that you can draw on the experience they have with their other clients to help identify for you what's common in the industry, what are some of the pain points they've seen? Can they give me advice or guidance in relation to certain things? That's where you get the most magic when working with a business lawyer, because they bring to the table a whole host of things that you've never thought of.
And you're really able to leverage off their experience. So that's the first thing to start with when you're working with a business lawyer, the agreements you have with your clients. Know your processes and systems. How are you issuing your proposals? Are you issuing your client service agreements through a CRM like Dubsado or are you issuing them [00:03:00] via email? And do you need them signed or not? Having clarity around what works for you is really important when you're reaching out to a business lawyer, because they can then answer your questions and give you guidance. I do that with my clients when they reach out for the first time.
So I've got a whole range of questions that I'll ask. I've had those initial conversations thousands of times, so I know what it is that I'm after and what I need to know to be able to add real value to clients. So your service offerings, your processes and systems, just ideas around how you want this to work is really important for you to know so that I can then tailor advice accordingly.
Once you've got your client service agreement nailed, locked and loaded and ready to go and you're really confident and really proud with the agreement that you've developed with your business lawyer, it's then time to work on your website documents and these are so important. It's so important to take the time to get your website documents right [00:04:00] for your business. And if you're a long time listener, you've no doubt heard me say time and time again, DIY is for Bunnings, not for your legals. And there's so many reasons I say that. No two businesses are the same. No two websites are the same and how you operate the backend of your business is going to be slightly different to somebody else down the road in your industry.
So taking the time to get your documents right, including your website documents is really important. So when you're working with your business lawyer on your website documents, your website terms and conditions are going to cover all of the things you're doing on your website. So whether you are using your website to show your portfolio and to show your work, so people can get an idea for your taste and your aesthetic and your design skills, whether you have a blog or podcast or lead magnets, freebie downloads, or whether you have courses or programs that people can sign up to on your [00:05:00] website, all of those things need to be considered when developing your website terms and conditions.
Now remember, your website terms and conditions are very different to the client service agreement or the client service terms and conditions that we've already talked about. They're two very different documents. They serve two very different purposes. So your website terms and conditions is something you'll work on with your business lawyer to tailor for what's happening on your website, to protect your intellectual property on your website, to make sure that you've got the right disclaimers and the right liability limitation clauses, and from there, if you have things available for purchase on your website, whether it's bookings, paid bookings that you have for your services, whether there's eBooks or eResources that can be purchased or products or whether people can subscribe to your membership or join your course or sign up to your mastermind.
Whatever it is you're doing on that website, your lawyer will then draft for you [00:06:00] tailored clickwrap terms and conditions that apply to what it is that's being purchased, whether it's a service or a product or a digital offering. Those clickwrap terms relate to whatever is being purchased. And when I say clickwrap what I mean is the terms and conditions that go right with the tick box function, which says something like, by ticking this box, I agree to these terms and conditions.
And that's just below the point of purchase or the point of sign up for digital offering on the payment page. Now again, those terms and conditions are slightly different to the website terms and conditions. The clickwrap terms and conditions relate to what's being purchased or what's being downloaded, whereas the website terms and conditions relate to what's happening on the website as a whole.
So they're two really important documents that you'll work on with your business lawyer and then we'll move in to the third, which is your privacy policy. [00:07:00] Now, if you're a long time listener, you'll know I'm talking to you here about the core trio of documents that every small business with a website needs.
The agreement you have with your clients, your website terms and conditions and your privacy policy. If you have a business that collects personal data, if you have a contact us page on your website where people can leave their details and leave a note, that's considered personal data under the Privacy Act, which is a Commonwealth piece of legislation.
So if that's you, which is just about every business, you need a privacy policy, which complies with the privacy legislation, which complies with the privacy principles, and which tells clients or consumers, the data you're collecting, what you're doing with it, what you're not doing with it, when you'll disclose it, when you won't, what their rights are, what they can do if they want to know what you've got.
A whole host of things goes into developing your privacy policy, which will be nuanced depending on your business and your industry, again. And that document will be [00:08:00] made accessible via a link at the bottom of the homepage of your website, right down there next to your website T's and C's. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, if you're not sure where they should be, dive over to my website, tmsolicitor. com. au and scroll right down to the bottom of the homepage, and they're right there. These are the documents you'll be working on with your business lawyer. This is where the conversation should start. So Tracey, I'm reaching out for the very first time. I'm a small business owner.
I'm a service provider. This is what I do. Let's talk about the agreement you have with your clients. Let's deep dive into that so we can nail the details and get the processes and systems right. Implementation is key. Then let's talk about your website. What is happening on your website. Let's get those website T's and C's tailored properly for your website. And if people can make bookings or if they can purchase something, we'll sign up to something on your website, let's make sure we've got the right clickwrap terms in the right place for each of those offerings. [00:09:00] Then we're going to move on to the privacy policy. It's such a fabulous conversation that is so that you have real peace of mind knowing you have met your legal obligations, you've complied with the consumer law, and you're setting yourself up to build trust and credibility with potential new clients every single time they land on your website because they can scroll to the bottom and see that you're a serious business owner, you know your stuff, you know what you're doing, and you've got the right legals in place.
So I don't know about you, but me personally, when I land on a new website for the very first time, if I'm interested in that website, I will scroll to the bottom and I will have a look and see whether there are website terms and conditions and a privacy policy there. And if there's not, I will move on. I won't do business with businesses who don't take this stuff seriously because the message they're sending to me is either they don't know about it or they don't care. And either way, that's not someone I want to transact with. So [00:10:00] those three documents are really important, and that is the perfect place, the absolute best place to start when you're reaching out to work with a business lawyer for the first time.
From there, you'll have beautiful organic conversations about what else are you doing in your business. And naturally for me, that then gravitates to a conversation around team and contractors and employees. So we'll explore whether your team are genuinely contractors or whether they're actually employees, make sure we understand that and get that right, and then talk about the documentation you need, because either way, if you've got contractors, you absolutely need to have contractor agreements in place.
And they need to be done properly. And if you've got employees, then employment agreements are non negotiable. So that's where the conversation gravitates for me as a beautiful extension from those core three documents that I work on. Now, of course, this is all prefaced on the basis that you're reaching out to somebody for the first time [00:11:00] as a preventative step.
So you're being really proactive. You're taking steps to set yourself up properly, get contracts in place that work. So you're reaching out to a business lawyer through that lens. Of course, that's not always the case. And I get that. So that's the perfect world and I'm a realist. So I know that it's not always through that lens that you'll be reaching out.
Sometimes it will be, I'm in a pickle, can you help me? I've been served with a claim or legal proceedings, can you help me? Sometimes it'll be, I've got this outstanding invoice with a client or I've got a really unhappy client and they want me to be doing A, B, and C, but that was never part of the scope of work. Not sure how to navigate it. So yes, those certainly are common scenarios where people will reach out to a business lawyer like me, but it's far better if the reach out is proactive and taking that preventative action rather than being reactive. I need your help now, Tracey, can you please help me out of this pickle?
[00:12:00] Once that's done now, let's talk about getting my contracts done properly and setting me up so that this doesn't happen again. So either way is fine, but if you're reaching out to be proactive, I suggest those are the places to start that we've just talked about. Your client service agreements or the agreement you have with your clients, your website terms and conditions, your privacy policy, and then explore contractor and employment agreements if you have a team. Don't let that stop you reaching out to a business lawyer. Obviously, if you are in a pickle, if you do need support, if you do need help to get through an issue so you can get to the other side and start with a clean slate and then get those proactive documents in place, absolutely don't let that stop you. You don't need me to talk to you about that though. So if you've got an issue, if you're in a bit of a predicament and you need help, then you don't need me to tell you how to reach out. You just simply reach out. This is what I need help with and go from there.
Absolutely. That's where you would start. So those are my best tips for you here on where to start [00:13:00] when working with a business lawyer for the first time. There's more than that, though. So once you start there, the relationship will organically grow and evolve and then you'll be able to address any other things in your business that you need help with.
And just on that note, I have developed the Essential Legal Checklist designed specifically for service based business owners to help navigate these conversations and the direction when working with a lawyer. So you can grab your free copy over on the website, tmsolicitor. com. au and download that and treat it as a resource, because that checklist is designed to be something that you keep as a business owner and you cast your eye over it ideally once a year. So most of my clients will do that either at the beginning of a calendar year or at the beginning of the new financial year.
And it's designed to be a really valuable and easy resource to use. So as you cast your eye over it, you know very well immediately, whether you need to have a conversation with me or your business lawyer [00:14:00] about the things on the list. And if you don't, then it's tick, put it away and I'll dig it out again next year.
That list is comprehensive in that it covers all the things that you need to be thinking about as a service based business owner. Some may apply to you, some may not, but certainly it's got the core foundational legal documents that we've talked about on this episode and that I talk about so often on this podcast and other things that may or may not apply to you, depending on where you're at on your business journey and what else you're doing in your business.
But dive over and grab your free copy of that checklist if you don't have it already. It's such a great resource to have. And as I say, it's designed to be something that you hold on to And revisit annually. I hope this episode has been really helpful for you and that you now have clarity around where to start with the conversation when reaching out to a business lawyer. And if you'd like that to be me, feel free to send me a DM on Instagram or send me a message through the website on the contact page. I'm only too happy to help if I can. Thank you so much for listening as always. I appreciate your time and I'll catch you next [00:15:00] week.
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