If your business is growing from a small-time operation to a much larger business, there are going to be lots of different elements that you need to pay attention to and make sure you follow as your number of employees grows and your legal business designation changes. Here are three ways that working with a corporate attorney on a regular basis can help you protect your growing business.
Permits & Licenses
As your business grows and changes, you need to make sure that the permits and licenses that you applied for in the past as still what you need now. A corporate attorney can look over all of your permits and licenses and make sure they are still valid based on the way you are operating your business now. They can also help you apply for new permits and license and see the process through, from the initial paperwork to the final approval.
Hiring Practices
Second, a corporate attorney can help you draft a companywide policy for how you interview and select new employees. You don't want to have a policy in place, even if it is unconscious, that results in discrimination in the hiring practice. You also don't want to have questions that your hiring committee asks that are not permitted by your state.
For example, if your company asks about someone's marital status or sexual orientation, you could be opening yourself up for a hiring discrimination lawsuit. Even though you can hire and fire employees at will in many states, you can't discriminate during this process.
Creating clear hiring deadlines and practices can help you prevent a hiring lawsuit in the future.
Employment Practices
Third, a corporate attorney can help you create and implement an employee handbook. This employee handbook can include lots of tools to protect yourself from future lawsuits.
For example, as a larger corporation, you need to make sure that your family leave policy is in line with the governments. As another example, you need to have a way to report workplace harassment, sexual and otherwise, in the workplace and a clear procedure in place for addressing it.
The clearer and more detailed your employee handbook is about your company culture and in regard to state and federal laws and regulations, the more your company would be protected if anyone ever files an employee orientated lawsuit against you.
As your business grows and expands, commercial litigation services can help you protect your best interests and your business through forward-thinking tactics and actions.
