Are you searching for an experienced and proven San Diego business attorney?  The Watkins Firm has 40+ years of experience serving the business, science and tech, real estate and medical / healthcare communities here in San Diego and across California.  We can provide sound general business counsel, transactional legal services and dispute resolution services to help any new or existing business, regardless of where you might be in the life cycle of your company.  If you are looking for a cost-efficient San Diego business attorney with extensive experience we invite you to review the strong recommendations of our clients and the legal industry and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.

3 Keys to Finding an Experienced and Proven San Diego Business Attorney:

• Find a law firm with decades of experience in your area of business, vertical market, or practice area.
• You’ll want a comprehensive suite of legal services from contracts, business formation, intellectual property, and mergers and acquisitions, to guidance for California employers and dispute resolution.
• Your business attorney should be one of your most trusted business advisors.  How comfortable do you feel when you speak with them?  Do they allow you to call regularly with questions without generating an extensive bill?  Do they bring you ideas before you even think of them?

Your experienced and proven San Diego business attorney from the Watkins Firm is part of a tradition of excellence over four decades here in San Diego and throughout California.  Our business services begin with all aspects of business formation including entity selection and the creation of corporate documents including an operating agreement, shareholder’s agreement, corporate documents and bylaws.  We work in all areas of corporate governance and compliance to ensure your company remains in good standing with the State while fulfilling all legal, ethical and regulatory responsibilities and requirements.

We help our business clients as they grow, attract new investment or expand through a merger, stock purchase or asset purchase.

We represent, educate, support and aggressively defend San Diego employers.  The Watkins Firm can review or create important employment related documents including contracts, employee handbooks as well as policies and procedures.  We provide sound counsel on all aspects of employment from the point of hire, through disciplinary policies and ultimately termination.  We represent employers who face challenges, disputes or lawsuits related to employees in all matters including wage and hour, PAGA actions, and compliance with the California Fair Pay Act.

Your experienced and proven San Diego business attorney at the Watkins Firm can represent you before any federal or state labor board in hearings and conferences to protect your interests against a system which can be highly biased in favor of the employee.

Pro-Tip: “Well, there’s so many, but let’s go basic. You’ve got your sole proprietorship where you’re just buy a business, get a business license from the county or the city, and you go into business that’s 36 bucks. Yep. And you’re just, there’s no documents and there’s no separation between you and the business. It’s just you. It’s you incorporated and you’re liable for everything.

Then you have your corporations. Now corporations are all formed as C Corporations, but you can elect to make it an S corporation, which means that you don’t have to pay double taxation on your money. You can pay yourself a shareholder distribution that is not subject to your payroll tax and all those other, you know, withholdings you have to do if you’re not a corporation. And you can pay yourself a small salary and you can save yourself money that way and still be benefited to the corporate veil protection.

A C Corporation is where you’re probably going to want to sell shares in the company or you’re going to bring in another investor(s), or you’re going to do some more complex transaction. And it’s not going to be a situation where one person or two people are going to siphon money out of the company.

For people who have licenses like me? Like doctors, like architects, like all types of, professional individuals where their license requires that they have a professional corporation. Us professionals are subject to license and license revocation. Meaning that we don’t get as much protection from the general public as a regular S-Corp or regular C-Corp.  We have special rules that say, yeah, you’re protected for this, this, and this, but you’re still going to be liable Dr. So-and-so if you cut the wrong foot off.

In the medical field, we were talking about professionals in the California Professional Corporation, but in the medical field there’s an entity that’s really interesting, the management service organization. It’s been around for a long time. And there’s been changes in the law on what you can and can’t do with them. But what it is, you are a doctor, you’re in a medical practice, you are great at what you do.  (That) doesn’t mean you’re going to be great at staffing, at equipment, at rent, at all those ‘running the business’ things. Running a business and at valuing that, you can establish one of those, an MSO and it can help with all those things. And you can bring in third parties who are professional at it and you can cut a deal with those third parties to save costs, make you more money, and come up with a different revenue stream. That would be different than if you just bunched it all together with your medical practice and try to manage the whole thing and account for it. So they do what you’re not good at, take it off your plate so you can focus on practicing medicine, for example. The patient’s satisfaction goes up, the quality of healthcare goes up, the profitability goes up. This sounds like a pretty great deal. And scalability.

You’re a doctor, you do good work. You have an office that’s set up to do great work. You get the patients in and out, you’re efficient. And now you don’t have to waste a bunch of time on all of the other administrative things. You can have help with that and it doesn’t violate your license. And so you can potentially blueprint, print and reprint and open up another office, open up another location, take on more doctors, take on more equipment, and also have different levels of protection based on different entities. So scalability all, all of a sudden becomes a possibility.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

The Watkins Firm takes a unique approach to resolving disputes which is designed to accomplish your goals, while resolving the dispute or lawsuit in a cost-effective and timely manner.  If you are searching for a cost-efficient, experienced and proven San Diego business attorney we invite you to review our podcast Episode 34 – Business Formation as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today