Business Formation Lawyers in California Legally Forming Your Business Entity and Protecting Your Company
Business formation and planning is an important step when starting a new business entity. It’s an often overlooked and minimized process, though it impacts how your business will be taxed and managed and also protects you from different liabilities.
Legal structures, such as limited liability companies, corporations, and partnerships, to name a few examples, can provide protection against both legal liability and excessive taxes. However, to maximize the benefits of such entities, proper selection, formation, organization, and operation are necessary when starting a new business venture.
Our California business formation attorneys can walk you through the process step-by-step.
On the same note, our business formation attorneys have been assisting and advising business owners for years regarding the formation, structure, and operation of both new business endeavors and the expansion of an existing commercial enterprise.
A seasoned business formation lawyer can advise you in the creation of any of the following entities:
- Corporations (Subchapter “C” or “S”);
- Professional Corporations;
- Limited liability companies (LLCs);
- Limited liability partnerships;
- Partnerships; and
- Joint Ventures
Should I Start a Corporation or Professional Corporation?
Corporations are a popular choice for business owners as they offer the strongest protection to their owners from personal liability, though they are more costly to form compared with other business structures. Too, they are subject to more rigid requirements, compliance, and record-keeping. Oftentimes because of this, corporations must work with outside legal services to ensure compliance if they do not have in-house counsel.
When choosing a corporate formation, there are two main types to consider: Corporation or Professional Corporation.
- Corporations (Subchapter ‘C’ or ‘S’): A corporation is a legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners. Corporations still have many of the same rights and responsibilities as individuals, though they are not responsible for personal liabilities or debts. Additionally, they have shareholders and Board members that run the company.
- An S-corporation is better for smaller corporations with 100 shareholders
- C-corporations are best for companies that might go public in the future with unlimited ownership potential
- Professional corporations: This entity is a variation of the corporate formation available to business owners in professional practices, such as doctors, lawyers, accountants, pharmacists, engineers, consultants, and architects. This is a unique legal structure that provides a limit on the owners’ personal liability for his or her negligence or malpractice and also can help protect against liability for negligence or malpractice of an associate.
What are Other Common Business Entities I Should Consider?
There are a number of different ways to legally structure your new entity, and each comes with advantages and disadvantages. The structure you choose depends on the goals, both short- and long-term, for your business.
From limited liability companies to partnership agreements to joint ventures, these are some of the other, more common business structures to consider when forming your entity:
- Limited liability company (also known as ‘LLC’): This type of business entity ensures you and your business partners aren’t personally responsible for any liability. This is traditionally the choice of many small businesses as they set up their company as it’s the most inexpensive to manage, easy to form, and simple to maintain, over time, with only annual requirements to keep your business in good standing.
- Limited liability partnership (also known as ‘LLP’): LLPs allows for a unique partnership structure, which is the best approach for partners that want more passive ownership and/or would like to structure an agreement around a specific time and “sweat equity” they put into the business. This might include partners that do not want management responsibility or less liability as more limited partners.
- Partnerships: When two or more people share ownership of a business, this is considered a partnership agreement. The partners contribute to all aspects of the business, including money, property, labor, or skill, and in return, each partner also shares the profits and losses of the business.
- Joint Ventures: In a joint venture, partners set up a business arrangement in which two or more parties agree to pull together their resources, whether it’s time, money, assets, and more, to reach a specific goal or complete a project. This agreement can start with a simple contract and grow into a different type of partnership from there.
How Can a Business Attorney Help me Form My Business?
The business structure you choose can impact your day-to-day operations and everyday decision-making, as well as influence every aspect of your personal and professional life, especially in the instances you must assume personal liability and your personal assets could be at risk.
Legal knowledge and experience with entity formation with multiple structures is why legal counsel is so important to get your business venture off on the right foot.
If you’re starting a business entity in California, our business formation lawyers can help you make the best decision for you and your business.
Our Los Angeles business attorneys have the needed knowledge and skill in the business formation space to meet your needs. We will take into consideration your goals, the size of your company, and employees and members, among other factors, to first determine the best and most appropriate legal structure for your company.
In short, we will do our due diligence in helping you understand the general landscape, business entities available to you, risks to avoid, and how to best prepare when creating a legal entity as the attorney-client relationship is important to us.
Book a Free Consultation with Our Business Formation Lawyers
When determining the best legal structure for your new business entity, whether it’s an LLC, S-corporation, or joint venture, Pacitti Law Firm won’t overlook any of the important steps or details when choosing the best legal entity for your business.
We pride ourselves on a thorough discovery process, also known as our complimentary initial consultation. We help you understand potential implications and liabilities, depending on the business structure, as well as tax considerations that benefit you or harm your business, depending on the legal entity you choose.
We want to make the best use of your time, too, as the attorney-client relationship you’ll find is imperative to our team and our overall process.
All of our clients are provided with a comprehensive assessment of their legal needs, the time involved to provide the proposed services and execute the agreement, as well as projected costs.
Additionally, we will help you close the loop and prepare and file all legal documents necessary for the creation and organization of your business entity (or entities), so you have the confidence and peace of mind to move forward.
Pacitti Law Firm has helped thousands of entertainment businesses with their business operations and business formation.
If you are interested in forming a new business or expanding an existing one, please contact us at 323-230-6200 today or click here.