Home/Insights
Insights
Short, practical notes on the questions clients actually ask, written to be useful whether or not you hire us.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual Property
Why a clearance search costs less than a rebrand
Skipping the search is the most expensive twenty minutes a founder can save.
Intellectual Property
Who owns the code your contractor wrote
Paying for work does not automatically mean you own it.
Intellectual Property
What a trademark does not cover
Registration protects a name in a category, not an idea in general.
Intellectual Property
Filing abroad without filing everywhere
The Madrid Protocol and the PCT let you defer the expensive decision.
Corporate
Corporate
Delaware, or your home state
The default answer is not always the right one, and it costs money either way.
Corporate
Vesting protects the founders who stay
It is usually mistaken for a term investors impose. It is mainly a term co-founders need.
Corporate
SAFEs are simple until the cap table is not
Cheap and fast at signing. The complexity arrives at conversion.
Corporate
The formalities exist to protect you personally
Limited liability is a benefit you can lose by ignoring the paperwork.
Employment
Employment
Calling someone a contractor does not make them one
Misclassification is assessed on how the relationship actually works, not on what the agreement says.
Employment
What a severance agreement has to include to work
A release that is not enforceable is a payment you made for nothing.
Employment
Non-competes vary more than most employers expect
The same clause can be fully enforceable in one state and void in another.
Employment
Job titles do not create overtime exemptions
Salary alone is not enough, and the arithmetic is unforgiving.
Contracts
Contracts
The clause that decides what a dispute is worth
Limitation of liability is negotiated in minutes and governs everything after.
Contracts
Governing law and venue are not boilerplate
They decide whose law applies and where you have to go to argue about it.
Litigation
Litigation
The duty to preserve starts before the lawsuit
Deleting in the ordinary course becomes spoliation once litigation is reasonably anticipated.
Litigation
What a demand letter is actually for
Most matters end before filing, and the first letter shapes how.
International
Have a question this raises?
If something here applies to your situation, a first call will tell you whether it is worth acting on.