There are generally three ways to sell your business: 1) assets, 2) stock purchase, and 3) bootstrap. The decision to structure the sale of your business involves consideration of a variety of factors. First, let’s break down the differences of each. Asset Sale. An asset sale is essentially a collection of separate transactions involving the property…

More»

Trying to avoid the obvious dictum of the dangers surrounding businesses in drafting their own agreement, it is important to demonstrate some of the conversations that members of LLC’s should have before drafting their operating agreement. Here is a simple checklist: 1. Do you as members want to limit the scope of what type(s) of business the…

More»

I have had the great pleasure of being a part of a PHP user group run by few local PHP programmers (organizers). As a PHP programmer hobbyist, I started to think of the myriad of technical legal issues that programmers and their employers have to unduly navigate. The practice of law is not knowing what the…

More»

There is a little-known method of limiting liability between different business operations or assets within the same LLC entity. Only available in certain jurisdictions, series LLC’s are a more recent invention started by Delaware in 1996 which allows a liability wall between different companies. The actual procedure of adding – or deleting – series is relatively straightforward once it is…

More»

In Olivia v. Heath, (1995) the Appellate Court of California decided on a case of a prank gone wrong. Employees at a bank  lowered the chair an inch from its normal height of a fellow female employee. When the prank’s victim went to sit down, she fell into the chair abruptly injuring her back. The injured employee…

More»

It’s one of the most common areas in which business owners make a mistake when they hire a new worker. Must I classify this worker as an employee? Or could I classify their services as a position of an independent contractor? Each has significant consequential differences. If an employee, besides wages and tax withholdings, you…

More»

If you have not actually read your lease, you are in the majority of commercial tenants that have skipped this part of their business. In fact, if you did actually read the thick document you likely skimmed over the parts that really matter if things go bad, i.e. indemnity clauses, insurance, exclusivity clauses, and personal…

More»

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision to order telecommuting employees back to the office has sparked a passionate debate over the increasingly common practice of working from home. Criticism from many, especially those working parents, sees Yahoo taking a step backwards in dealing with the realities of the modern workforce and tech industry. Moving a workforce to home…

More»

There is a misconception in California that you can only fire or discriminate if its for work performance; but generally “appearance” discrimination is generally permissible.  There is no blanket legal protection in California for those overweight as there are for gender or race. In fact, there was only one state that we could find that had this…

More»

Valentine’s Day means different things to each person. For some, a mere valentine can be given to a friend or colleague as it was during school days; however, Valentine’s Day is a holiday associated with love and relationships and an innocent gift of flowers or a card can be easily misconstrued. Managing risks of harassment related litigation…

More»