Lee R. Schroeder is an Ohio licensed attorney at Schroeder Law LLC in Putnam County. He limits his practice to business, real estate, estate planning and agriculture issues in northwest Ohio. He can be reached at Lee@LeeSchroeder.com or at 419-659-2058. This article is not intended to serve as legal advice, and specific advice should be sought from the licensed attorney of your choice based upon the specific facts and circumstances that you face.
Adding owners to a business venture will almost always require considerations beyond just legal ownership. A variety of “non-legal” issues may include time allocation, value of each individual’s work and other relationships.
It is important to evaluate these considerations and effectively work the “non-legal” aspects into the business documents. This includes updating an entity’s operational requirements, adopting a new resolution, updating bills of sale and more.
One of the most challenging parts of the practice of law is helping people deal with issues that are not technically legal issues. In my practice, those non-legal issues often deal with the relationships between business co-owners or “partners,” as they are commonly described.
Sometimes, entrepreneurs and small business owners want to bring on key employees or colleagues as partners. I can and do prepare the legal documents to effectuate that objective, but there is a myriad of other considerations that the new partners also need to address independent from legal documents.
Read more about analyzing non-legal issues between prospective and current business partners in Lee’s article in the Lima News, “Legal-Ease: Becoming and remaining business partners.”
Source: LimaOhio.com, “Legal-Ease: Becoming and remaining business partners,” by Lee R. Schroeder, January 7, 2017