Working With Jun Avila

Congratulations! You decided to start your own business in the U.S. You may be a fresh graduate with a brilliant idea that will change the world, or you may have decided you worked for someone else for long enough and think you can do better by working for yourself. 

Whatever the reason, you made perhaps one of the most important decisions of your life. You know your service or product, and you did much market research to learn about your customers. You may have been told that you should speak to a lawyer about your business, or a specific legal need arose while setting up and running the business, but you may be unsure about whether you really need a lawyer, or if you are, you may not know what to expect when working with a lawyer. 

In this article, we give you a high-level overview of 1) some of the reasons why you need an experienced business lawyer to advise you on your fledgling business and 2) what it is like to work with the trusted advisors at Jun Avila.

1) Why You Should Consider Hiring an Attorney for your Business from the Beginning

A) Business Structuring

When you are in the middle of executing a great business idea or busy dealing with customer demands, it is challenging to pay attention to matters that do not have an immediate impact on your business. However, there are important reasons why you should consult a competent lawyer about the legal structure of your business.

One such reason is ensuring that your business is structured for optimal tax treatment. By thoroughly considering the proper structuring of your business, you can keep more of your hard-earned income by reducing, avoiding or deferring the tax that would otherwise apply. It can also help you avoid nasty disputes with the IRS further down the road.

Another advantage of carefully structuring your business from the get-go is having greater certainty and stability in the continuity of the business. This is especially the case when there are multiple owners involved or your business is in some form of partnership or joint venture. By setting clear boundaries about the rights, obligations and interests of all involved, you can avoid unnecessary distractions, souring relationships or surprises from someone’s sudden departure. 

B) Regulatory

Another big reason why it would be wise for any new business to consult a good lawyer is ensuring that the business meets all regulatory requirements that may apply to it. 

Some businesses are obviously regulated. For such businesses, it is still beneficial to canvass the legal landscape to ensure that there aren’t any regulatory requirements other than the obvious that are relevant.

Even for businesses that may appear to be obviously unregulated, many of our clients are surprised by the legal requirements that apply and the risks that incompliance presents to their bottom line. 

It is much costlier to have to fix a system once it is in place. Therefore, clearly understanding the regulatory landscape from the beginning and building a compliance system that meets and possibly exceeds the regulatory requirements can save you a lot of money and time that you may need to spend later to put your business into compliance. 

C) Competitive advantage

Law is not necessarily just something to be “dealt with” or a “cost of doing business”. Competent legal advice can help you get ahead from the beginning by giving you a competitive advantage.

For example, a knowledgeable lawyer can work with you to identify and help you qualify for little-known government programs, incentives, benefits or subsidies that can boost your business. 

Another way in which good legal advice can help your business get ahead is by ensuring that your legal contracts are structured so that they can be executed more efficiently. Most lawyers (i.e. lawyers representing the other side) tend to want to include familiar contractual terms that may not add much value in a particular transaction. A flexible lawyer can identify contractual terms that have little value for the contracting parties and eliminate them through a combination of persuasion and compromise, which can make it easier and more efficient for the lawyer’s client to carry out its terms. 

2) What Working with Jun Avila is Like

Having discussed some of the reasons why you should consider consulting a good lawyer right from the outset when you establish a business, we would like to give you an idea of what you should expect when you work with the trusted advisors at Jun Avila.

At Jun Avila, we begin every engagement with an in-depth meeting with the client where we discuss the client’s needs, challenges, and, most of all, aspirations. We let you do most of the talking, while clearly responding to any questions you may have, which ensures that you leave the meeting feeling like you have fully explained yourself to us and understand how JALaw can help you. The focus is always on you, not us. 

Such meeting also ensures that Jun Avila understands who you are and what we can do for you. Although adequate legal work can often be done without a full understanding of the background, the trusted advisors at Jun Avila always do their best to understand you because we believe that our clients deserve excellent legal work, not just adequate legal work.

After the initial meeting, we promptly begin working on the specific matter at hand, while respecting your schedule and ensuring your legal rights are preserved. By way of example, if you have asked us to create tailored Terms and Conditions of Use for your business’ website, we would prepare a draft of such document for your review. Our draft will often contain useful notes that will help you review and understand the document, as well as thoughtfully placed questions to ensure that you will consider the relevant and important items relating to the document and their potential impact on your business. Ultimately, this leads to a collaborative and iterative process with as much input from you as from us, because we believe that neither the legal advisor alone nor the client alone is capable of producing the top-notch product. 

As your business grows, so too will your legal needs. Depending on the terms of our engagement and your preferences, we will stay in touch, periodically monitoring your business and checking in on you. We aim to go beyond being just your legal advisor to being your trusted business advisor. We will try to help you stay on course, addressing any legal issues that may arise, help capitalize on any opportunities or assist you in any other way possible, both legal and non-legal. 

Ultimately, we seek to build long-term relationships with our clients in which we become integral contributors to their success while at the same time benefitting from it. Reach out to Jun Avila today at info@junavila.com to discuss how we can be your trusted advisors guiding you to your success.