Getting Started in Consulting, Third Edition

Chapter 3. Sorting Out the Legal, Financial, and Administrative: First, Let's Kill All the Lawyers

The information in this chapter is designed to provide you with options as you organize legally and financially. It is not intended to be legal or investment advice, and you should see your personal attorney and financial adviser to determine what is best for you. (But make absolutely certain that they are professionals who understand solo practitioners and small, professional services firms. Not every lawyer and accountant is good at this, though they all claim to be. More on this later.)

Now, having made that disclaimer, let's look at some smart moves. That quote above about killing the lawyers is almost always misconstrued. Shakespeare put the words into the mouth of his character Dick Butcher in Henry VI, meaning it satirically: If we blame the lawyers and kill them all, we'll be in even worse shape than we are now.

Here is an unqualified rule: Find the absolute best help you can for your legal and financial matters. Do not use your cousin Louie, or the attorney who closed on your mortgage, or the accountant who does your taxes. You need professionals who are wise in the ways of small business and entrepreneurship and, believe me, those traits do not reside in every lawyer and accountant. Ideally, you want someone who was once where you are, beginning a firm, forging a new business, balancing work and private lives, and prone to take prudent risk. That person will empathize with ...