Taking Legal Advice

Introduction from WFL

Our purpose is to enable Senior Independent Professionals to access appropriate legal advice in setting up and running their independent Practices, including guidance in finding the right sort of lawyer.

Independents setting up on their own need to be aware of the laws that do and can impact on the way they set up and carry out their businesses.

They need to be able to recognise the risks that can be avoided or reduced and the opportunities that can be managed by good knowledge and by putting in place well thought out legal agreements to regulate their business relationships and dealings.

Our expectation is that anyone embarking on an independent working lifestyle – an Entrepreneur by default rather than by intention – would consider the legal implications in all aspects of their endeavours.

Knowing when you need advice;
Knowing where to get it from; taking action ahead of the actual need;
Never being taken by surprise;
Avoiding risks you don’t have to take and ending up with liabilities that you should never have to cope with;
Being proactive rather than reactive.

The law can affect you and your business in many ways. Be prepared. Act wisely – and in timescales of your choosing rather than anyone else’s.

About Andrew James

Working Free is pleased to be collaborating with Andrew James of OnHand Counsel Ltd. In presenting this Taking Legal Advice facility to Working Free Clients.

Andrew James

Andrew James owns and runs OnHand Counsel Ltd, providing the services of a corporate and commercial Solicitor based in St Albans but available to Working Free clients anywhere in England, and, possibly more widely in the UK. Please email andrew.james@workingfree.co.uk

Andrew James offers this signposting service and sets out in the following section Headings for the different areas of the law which may come into play in your work. In some cases, he will be able to advise personally as a lawyer and by agreement.

Contents – Taking Legal Advice

This Support Topic seeks to identify different areas of the law which may come into play in your work. In some cases, Andrew James will be able to advise personally as a lawyer and through the usual agreements. He has also created a number of useful guides on areas which are likely to be of particular relevance to independents.. If you think a topic could usefully be added to this Section please email andrew.james@workingfree.co.uk

Andrew James offers a free preliminary Discussion

Solicitor Andrew James of OnHand Counsel Ltd offers a free preliminary discussion designed to help you orientate your thinking about how the law might affect your own independent professional activities. In offering this signposting service, we, collaboratively, support it with additional information. Please read on.

This facility is much about signposting.

Andrew James offers this signposting appoach and sets out in this section Headings for the different areas of the law which may come into play in your work.

In some cases, he will be able to advise personally as a lawyer and by agreement.

Note, in particular, the checklist nature of the content

This offers the opportunity to consider a wide range of positives and negatives that may well, at some time, come into play in your independent business activities.

Guidance in choosing a Solicitor/Lawyer (See next section)

This involves guidance about choosing a lawyer and how best to manage this process. This, as you might imagine, could involve working professionally with Andrew. But we all have our own contacts. But we all don’t know what we don’t know. This Section also serves to alert you of the things that can go wrong and which you need either to avoid or take professional help. andrew.james@workingfree.co.uk

Scary talk about the dangers of being unaware of legal risks

Being new to all this is, in itself, a risk – unidentified; unexpected; unquantified.

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”
Donald Rumsfeld, Former U.S. Congressman

Please Note

What you need to do, in preparation for speaking with Andrew, is to examine all the material contained in this section and become aware of its scope as might apply to you. You need to know what questions to ask!

please email andrew.james@workingfree.co.uk

The types of activities senior executives leaving the corporate employee world might be involved with vary considerably. They include:-

Consultancy – and in all its various forms;
Interim assignments;
Project management;
NEDs;
Charities and trusts;
Setting up new (non-consultancy business) in various industry sectors;
Going into business with others;
Investing in new businesses (and getting investment in their new businesses)
Business angels;

Andrew James writes –

We decided that the best approach is to list all those areas where legal advice might become necessary – including those falling into those categories listed above. We segregate all these areas where Working Free can help directly from those where we would seek to redirect enquirers to other lawyers. Sometimes these will be law firms we know who have specific expertise in the areas of advice being sought and sometimes we will fall back on offering signposting advice.

Our primary aim is to point out all those areas where legal advice can be sought. What we would ask is that if there are any areas that are relevant to your current needs are not mentioned here, please do email us, using the interactive mechanism on this website. Being online and interactive also means that we are constantly updating both its content and its functionality.

Disclaimer

Information contained in this section is necessarily generic and in a readable format which may not contain all details on the subject matter. In all Law Matters the devil is in the detail and you should ensure you take individual advice specific to your circumstances before acting.

Choosing your Lawyer

Many businesses don’t choose a lawyer until they have to. They may ask current contacts for recommendations. They may trawl through the internet. They may have met someone socially. They may just take pot-luck.

Even where current relationships exist, many businesses tend to ask their lawyers to provide a reactive service, when they could be getting better value out of them by talking to them earlier and using them as a regular sounding-board for their aspirations, objectives, strategies and plans. Using a good experienced lawyer as a business friend, as a trusted counsel in whom you can confidentially confide any problems, needs, opportunities or concerns is a smart thing to do.

Having to pay for this might frighten many – particularly those who will have read press comments about the average annual earnings of most of the Equity Partners in the Magic Circle law firms now pitched at around £1.7m. NOT where you are likely to be!

Read here what Andrew has to say about choosing a lawyer

www.onhandcounsel.co.uk/benefits/value-for-money/

…and here is what the Law Society says: www.lawsociety.org.uk/for-the-public/using-a-solicitor/

But talking about it can/should virtually always result in a mutually agreeable arrangement. It will be easy for many to assess what a value for money deal looks like.

Section Menu

Overview, key points and content from the Technical Topic Partner
Starting Up – Structuring, funding and running a business.
Doing Business
The Growing Business
Exit
A brief Introduction to consultancy

Overview, key points and content from the Technical Topic Partner

An experienced business lawyer can help you in many ways, such as:

Advising and helping to set up the different types of business models you can use to run your business. They will generally do this working together with your accountants and tax advisers (see the separate Accounting and Tax Technical Topic which also covers this area).
Advising and helping you to put in place appropriate paperwork to regulate your relationships with any business partners.
Advising and helping you to put in place appropriate paperwork to regulate your business dealings with clients, customers, suppliers and other business relationships.

OnHand Counsel can help in all sorts of areas where corporate or commercial legal advice and paperwork is needed and can help to point you in the direction of other specialist business lawyers where required.

These may include fellow members of the Network of Independent Business Lawyers which was founded by Andrew James, who are predominantly one-person bands who specialise in different areas of business law, ranging from general areas such as property, employment, intellectual property and commercial litigation to more niche areas such as construction, planning law, data protection, tax law, financial markets, life sciences, the travel and leisure industry, biotech, competition law, pensions and wine!

Importantly, please be aware that you can also use a good experienced lawyer, as a business friend, as a trusted counsel in whom you can confidentially confide any problems, needs, opportunities or concerns. Many businesses tend to ask their lawyers to provide a reactive service, when they could be getting better value out of them by talking to them earlier and using them as a regular sounding-board for their aspirations, objectives, strategies and plans.

Starting Up – Structuring, funding and running a business.

Articles of Association
Business plans
Business structures
Companies limited by guarantee
Consultancy contracts (see ‘A brief introduction to consultancy’ and linked articles, below)
Contractor contracts
Directors’ duties
Employment contracts
Executive and non-executive director contracts
Financing and security
Friends and family investments
LLP agreements
Option arrangements
Partnership agreements
Share schemes and incentives
Shareholder issues

Shareholders agreements (see ‘Joint venture companies and shareholders agreements’ www.onhandcounsel.co.uk/business-structuring/business-models-part-3-joint-venture-companies-and-shareholders-agreements/

Society and club constitutions
Varied corporate advice

Doing Business

Confidentiality agreements/NDAs (see www.onhandcounsel.co.uk/doingbusiness/confidentiality-agreements-ten-top-faqs/
General contract issues
Guarantees
Identification, protection and exploitation of technology/brands/products/ ideas/IPR.
Industry specific commercial agreements
Introduction/referral agreements
Joint ventures (see ‘Business models for joint ventures’ www.onhandcounsel.co.uk/doingbusiness/business-models-part-two-joint-ventures/
Routes to market, eg
- Agency
- Distribution
- Franchise (see ‘Business models – franchises www.onhandcounsel.co.uk/doingbusiness/resources/
- Licence
Supply of goods and services
Use of 3rd party rights
Varied commercial advice

The Growing Business

Company procedures, eg share buybacks
Corporate and other joint ventures
Corporate finance
Corporate restructuring and reorganisation
Debt rescheduling
Directors’ duties
Legal audits and due diligence
Management Buy Outs
Mergers and acquisitions
New ventures/diversification
Raising debt and equity finance
Shareholder and director conflicts
Subscription agreements and investor Articles of Association
Venture capital; private equity

Exit

Exit planning
Grooming for exit
Insolvency/corporate recovery
- legal healthchecks
- preparing and formalising contracts
- putting business and legal issues in order
Share and business sales
Succession planning

A brief Introduction to consultancy

We have produced a number of Guides covering issues relating to the world of consultancy. The other Guides are as follows:

What is a consultant?

There is no special legal definition. The term can be applied to any person who provides their personal services to someone else, whether for a short term project or on a long-term ongoing basis. Usually the term is used when a client needs to engage someone with skills, knowledge or experience to provide services which are not available in its existing workforce. There may or may not be much actual ‘consulting‘ involved.

What are the main pros and cons of being an independent consultant as opposed to an employee (or worker)?

Pros for the consultant:

The feeling of autonomy and independence (escaping from the corporate employee rat race)
Ability to work for multiple clients, and to develop one’s own business relationships and personal business ‘goodwill’
Flexibility and work-life balance
More favourable tax treatment than for employees (eg business expenses; National Insurance contributions) – if you avoid IR35 etc

Cons for the consultant:

Lack of job security and employment law protection
Scary world of running your own small business
Less certainty over earnings
Potential business liabilities (requiring insurance; and/or operating through a limited company to limit personal liability)

Pros for the client:

Flexibility – the client can engage the consultant on an as needed basis , and the consultancy agreement can be put on a more commercial contractual footing
With a genuinely self-employed consultant or with a consultancy company the client doesn’t have to worry about all the statutory employment law obligations and liabilities
The client shouldn’t have to worry about payroll accounting and employee tax and NI – IF the client can sleep at night comfortable that it has got around all the legislation designed to try to help the Revenue treat consultants as employees or workers!

Cons for the client:

The client has less control over the consultant as the consultant does not owe all the ‘master-servant’ duties owed to an employer by an employee. The client can try to put various controls and obligations in the consultancy agreement but this then increases the risk that the consultant will be said to be an employee.
Employees owe their employers implied duties of good faith, trust and confidentiality. A consultant doesn’t generally have such implied duties as regards their client.
Intellectual property (IP) created by an employee is automatically treated as owned by the employer, whereas an independent contractor owns any IP he creates.

Self-employed, employee or ‘worker’ – why does it matter?

There are complex rules which determine how a consultant should be treated for tax and employment law purposes.

These rules depend on whether the consultant is to be treated as self-employed, an employee or a ‘worker’.

Why are the main pros and cons of providing consultancy services through a company?