As an owner of a small business avoiding the danger of litigation should be a top priority for you. Legal issues can take you by surprise and seriously hurt your bottom line. To help protect your business, watch for these common legal issues:

Disgruntled Employees: If you terminate a non-performing employee you need to make sure he or she signs carefully drafted documents prepared by an attorney. These documents should make the terms of dismissal crystal clear based on legally permissible termination reasons. Letting an employee go without these forms leaves the door open for the employee to pursue legal action against you.

Discrimination/Harassment: When hiring any employee make sure you have retained all of the applicants' resumes and paperwork as well as the detailed job description and a summary of your hiring process. You'll need these documents to prevent allegations of discrimination in selecting your successful candidate and to establish you hired the most qualified person regardless of gender, ethnicity age or other protected categories. In addition, you need to pay attention to co-worker relationships and the workplace environment to ensure that discrimination or harassment is not occurring. Any of these situations can produce lawsuits.

Copyright and Patent Issues: Cutting edge companies in any industry consistently face aggressive patent litigation. You need to make sure your R&D has been thoroughly examined and tested to ensure the patents and copyrights of your products don't infringe on others, particularly during your product development phase. This can prevent messy legal battles with competitors and patent trolls.

Dissatisfied Customers: Customers who are dissatisfied can file individual or class action lawsuits against your company and attack you by accusing you of faulty products, poor service and failed promises. You need to be proactive in resolving any of these issues early through technical support, online assistance, monitoring social media and other complaint boards and promptly resolving issues and addressing customer complaints.

These are common legal issues facing business today. Make sure you are proactive in resolving these problems before they start, and make sure you have a competent business attorney representing and protecting both you and your company.

Please contact us if we can help you avoid these issues. You know your business — we know the law.

Talk with you next month,
Kelly