One of the biggest challenges most SMEs face is to maintain a thorough understanding of the company’s core, both legal and commercial, once their company starts growing. The more clients a business has or the more complex its commercial offering becomes, the harder it is to maintain a firm grip on the big picture and have a good understanding of its liability, risk and compliance duties. On the other hand, the clearer the business proposition and commercial terms are, the easier it is to reach out to new clients or to repackage your services or products in times of economic turmoil.
The legal suite of any starting business must comprise as a minimum the following:
- the rules under which it is incorporated (such as a company statute for a BV or a Partnership agreement for a VoF)
- the description of its products or services and the compulsory legal warranties (if applicable)
- the specifics of delivering those products and/or services – (who, where, what and how), reunited into a cohesive document usually entitled “terms of commerce” or “terms and conditions”
- employment contracts for its employees and other mandatory formalities or collaboration agreements if working with ZZP-ers
- sale agreements for its products and services
- different other agreements through which the company collaborates with other companies for the production, sale, promotion, development or diversification of its offering
We are all living into a highly technical and complexly organised world, in which all industries and their regulatory frameworks are getting more and more intricate, so now more than ever, keeping your legal core documents as simple and unnecessarily complex is the key to ensure cohesiveness and ease of contract. That can be achieved by devising your business strategy as a four-prong unit comprising:
- your company values
- a thorough research into your target customer/client
- in-depth knowledge of the applicable market(s) and
- your company risk profile
Once these four parameters are defined with clarity and interlinked, weaving the legal fabric around them that allows for both legal compliance and economic drive and prosperity becomes an exercise of discipline.
At The Legal Folder, we can help your company revise and draft the documents that form the core of your business, starting from the company statutes and terms of commerce, and moving forward to company internal policies and terms of conduct, as well as specific commercial contracts such as: sale and distribution agreements, partnership and sponsorships, and the all-important license and services agreements. We have in our team competencies that range from legal to marketing, business development, finance, sales and IT and we use these diverse skills to identify the optimal solutions for your specific needs. We want our clients to understand the basis of their business, so they can identify market gaps, future opportunities and synergies with other market players and thus always be a step further than the status quo.
“I have always loved two things: helping people and solving problems. I became a lawyer to do just that and today, when I looking back at my career, I can say that I owe all my success to being driven by a genuine love and concern for people. As a client with The Legal Folder, we will help, support, educate and empower you, always with an empathetic ear and a hands on attitude.”
Georgiana Vasile, Founder of The Legal Folder
