FAQ

What are your areas of practice?

Our business legal services are for growing companies, mostly in the Software-as-a-Service, FinTech, blockchain, and marketing areas. Our day-to-day focus is on sales transactions with customers, strategic partnerships, investor and shareholder matters, and other general counsel services.

What does an outside general counsel do?

Every growing company faces constant business challenges and having a knowledgeable lawyer up to speed on your business helps ensure all issues are proactively considered. In a typical week for a client, we may:

• negotiate several agreements with customers, suppliers and vendors
• negotiate a building lease extension
• draft employee stock option grants and new-hire paperwork
• update online Terms of Service or a Privacy Policy to account for a change in the law

We expect to review new business strategies and will retain and manage other lawyers when needed for litigation, patent prosecution, or specialized M&A (Mergers & Acquisitions) work.

When is the best time in our company’s evolution to establish a relationship with an attorney?

It may sound self-serving, but you really cannot connect with a good lawyer too soon when launching a new venture. There’s no need to use the lawyer extensively before you’ve raised funds or are generating revenue, but you do need a knowledgeable resource to help recognize and address seemingly small issues early to avoid substantial headaches and cost later.

How do you work with clients?

By design, we work closely with clients. Because our rates are affordable relative to big firms, we can spend the time to really understand your business, the stakeholders’ personalities and risk tolerance, as well as your long-term goals. It takes some effort to build mutual trust and respect, but it’s how we get the best business results and the only way worth doing business together.

How do you bill clients?

We’re open to creative billing arrangements, but most of our work is billed hourly. With some startups, we provide advisor services and legal services at reduced rates in exchange for warrants to purchase shares in the new venture.

What can we do on our end to help keep our legal costs down?

The best way to avoid surprises on your legal bill is to work closely with your lawyer to better understand the legal issues that impact your business. This will help you avoid unnecessary friction with customers, etc., and scale your best practices internally. Most legal matters a growing tech company faces involve a risk-tolerance calculation, and a trusted lawyer will help you understand the costs and benefits and find your optimal solution.

How do you invoice?

We invoice monthly for all fees and services provided the prior month, unless we’ve agreed to some other arrangement. As part of our effort to go paperless, we only invoice electronically and use e-signature services wherever possible. We have accounts with Bill.com, CounselGO, and other services to make it easy for you to process invoices.

How do you communicate with clients?

We communicate in the ways that are most efficient for you, usually email, Slack, Zoom conference calls, and text messaging. We don’t bill for quick questions, because we don’t want you to hesitate to ask. It’s often the unasked question that causes problems later. In-person meetings are less frequent simply because of the pace of work and inherent inefficiency of travel, but we always make a point to meet occasionally with each client and will travel whenever needed.

How do I get started?

Send us an e-mail at cborders@borderslawgroup.com. We’d be happy to schedule a no-cost consultation on your issues. Then, to begin representing you, we’ll complete the following steps:

• Confirm that we don’t have any potential conflicts of interest (such as representing the other party in a transaction)
• Have you sign an engagement letter