Love your lawyer

This article is part of the Building a Sustainable Business series about starting and running a sustainable business. Read all the articles here.

Ignore Shakespeare. Do not kill all the lawyers. You need yours in good health, walking around, and capable of keeping your business on track.

Too many people think of lawyers like a legal AAA. They only call when total disaster has struck. But that’s too late. If you are running a company you need to check in with your lawyer before you make a mistake, not afterwards. Think of your corporate lawyer as your best friend who will be there to guide you down the right path or, if you’ve got a quick mouth and quicker send finger like me, he or she will help pull you out of the morass.

Every startup needs a corporate lawyer. This is a specialized branch of the legal profession. This is not the lawyer you call for a divorce or to sue McDonalds because the coffee’s too hot. They are not your friendly neighborhood generalists who are working out of a bedroom because they just got laid off and desperately need work.

My first lawyer was Anthony Mancuso who, with his Nolo Press books, helped me with the 24-hour Delaware incorporation service. But when I started having questions, I couldn’t find his phone number.

The Bay Area is blessed with some the best law firms out there. Orrick, Cooley, and ReedSmith, just for starters. If you cultivate faith and trust in the lawyers you talk to, you may be able to defer your fees until money starts coming in.

My legal BFF is Don Reinke at ReedSmith. He specializes in startups and I suspect he’s an adrenaline junkie because there are so many ups, downs, and surprises with new companies.

I was looking for a lawyer with whom I could be comfortable, who could refer me to people – like advisors, board members, other legal specialists, and investors and who would talk me through contracts that were initially incomprehensible.

Don looks at his potential clients just like a VC would – except he can make up his mind in 48 hours, not 48 weeks or months. He calls it his M&M strategy –  Management and Market. First, he’ll look at an executive summary or plan; then he sets up a meeting with the management team. If he believes in the team and the market size, he’s on board and you are one lucky person.