What Do Corporate Lawyers Do? A Modern Overview

People often ask me, “What do corporate lawyers do?” I’ve been a corporate lawyer for over seven years and have helped both small businesses and big multinational companies. Let’s learn more about What Do Corporate Lawyers Do? A Modern Overview.”

That is a good question. It can be hard for people who aren’t lawyers to understand what a corporate attorney does on a daily basis. In fact, we are very important for helping businesses start up, grow, and run smoothly.

This article will go into great detail about what a corporate lawyer does and what they are responsible for in today’s business world. Read on for a full explanation of what we do, whether you want to become a corporate lawyer or just want to learn more about what we do.

Advising on how to set up and incorporate a business

Startup founders and people who want to start their own businesses need to know how to legally set up their businesses right away. As a corporate lawyer, I help clients choose between LLCs, partnerships, corporations, and other business structures so that they can get the best level of liability protection, tax benefits, and ease of operation.

Once a structure is chosen, I take care of all the paperwork and filings needed to properly register the business with the state and make it an LLC. I recently helped two young tech entrepreneurs set up a C-corporation in Delaware so they could legally start looking for venture capital funding.

For bigger businesses, I might suggest to the Board of Directors that they restructure or change the type of business they are in order to get growth or operational benefits. Last year, I was in charge of a 6-month project that looked at options and oversaw the process of turning a privately held client into a public company.

Important Business Contracts

Writing, negotiating, and reviewing a wide range of business agreements and contracts is a big part of corporate law. These are the legal foundations on which most business deals and relationships are built.

Operating agreements between LLC members, shareholder agreements, stock option plans, employment and contractor contracts, non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), terms of service, procurement and supplier contracts, commercial leases, asset purchase agreements, and many more are some of the agreements I make every day.

To protect my client’s interests in the deal, I use my legal knowledge to write agreements that spell out clearly who is responsible for what, what is expected, and what could go wrong. I found unclear language about usage rights in a product distribution contract I was looking over this month. This could have cost a client hundreds of thousands of dollars in the future. This didn’t happen because the terms were renegotiated to be clearer.

Advising on Compliance and Lowering Risks

It’s important for businesses to follow the rules and lower their legal risk; if they miss something, it could cost them a lot. As a business lawyer, I tell my clients to follow the law and file the right paperwork in areas such as

• Rules for Hiring People
• Tax rules
• Laws about intellectual property
• Regulations specific to an industry
• New rules for the environment, health, and safety
• Rules for data privacy
• Laws against bribery and corruption

As an example, I did a compliance audit for a growing e-commerce client last quarter. I helped them find a few policies and procedures that were missing in the areas of data security, reporting environmental impacts, and employment paperwork. By following my suggestions, they cut regulatory and legal risks by a large amount.

Acquisitions and Mergers

As companies grow, corporate lawyers are in charge of putting growth plans into action, especially when it comes to mergers and acquisitions (M&A). I help my clients find companies to buy, do their research, set up deals in a way that saves them money on taxes and running the business, negotiate with other parties, and finally complete complicated deals.

I recently helped a private equity client buy three companies over the course of 18 months in order to quickly grow their portfolio in a hot industry vertical. Deals that mixed cash, debt instruments, and equity stakes had to be carefully set up.

Besides mergers and acquisitions, I also help clients with capital raises, joint ventures, spin-offs, sales, and other complicated growth strategies that ambitious businesses need.

Court Cases and Settling Disagreements

Even with the best contracts and compliance programs, business conflicts and disagreements will always happen. As part of my job, I try to keep these from turning into existential legal crises for my clients.

I defend and pursue claims on behalf of my clients in a wide range of areas, including breach-of-contract lawsuits, employment disputes, securities fraud, white-collar crime allegations, and intellectual property infringement. I do this by using both traditional courtroom methods and alternative dispute resolution methods.

A client recently had to deal with unfair competition and IP theft claims from a hostile competitor in the same industry who wanted to destroy their business. In a fierce legal and public relations battle, I got the accuser to back down and leave them alone. It’s part of the job to outsmart opponents and avoid legal threats.

Conclusion

In Short, As you can see, corporate lawyers are in charge of a wide range of tasks that affect almost every part of our clients’ businesses. Even though it’s hard work, I get to help entrepreneurs and businesses succeed every day, which makes my job very rewarding.

I feel privileged to be able to use my specialized legal skills to help organizations navigate risks, solve problems, complete transactions, and ultimately drive growth in a very complex regulatory environment. This is true whether I’m starting a new kind of law firm or giving advice to multi-billion dollar global giants.

If you want to make a real difference by giving brave business leaders the tools they need, then becoming a corporate lawyer might be a good choice for you. Don’t be afraid to get in touch if you ever need legal help for your business or startup. I hope you understand the article “What Do Corporate Lawyers Do? A Modern Overview” clearly.