All entrepreneurs, first-time business owners and even those with multiple companies need and experienced and proven business attorney who can answer all questions, and help them with what to know when starting an LLC in San Diego or anywhere in California.  What should you look for in a business start-up attorney and why do you need a lawyer at all?

Key Takeaways from What to Know When Starting an LLC in San Diego:

• Look for a business law firm with decades of experience here in San Diego and across California who have helped to start and advise other businesses in your field.
• A business attorney can help you to avoid the costly mistakes made by others, to get the corporate documents and operating agreement right, up front.  This prevents disputes and lawsuits once the company is up, running, and successful.
• If you presume success, you will face many challenges, opportunities, and questions about how to be an employer, while avoiding disputes, lawsuits and class actions such as a PAGA case.  Your experienced business attorney should help to set things up from the start, and help with questions about what to know when starting an LLC in San Diego or anywhere in California.

Decades of Experience in San Diego Business Formation

The Watkins Firm has helped to form and advise business start-ups in San Diego for more than four decades.  We have helped literally thousands of businesses to form an LLC or appropriate business entity and grow their business into a successful enterprise.  With more than 40+ years of experience serving the business, science and tech, real estate and medical / healthcare communities here in San Diego and across California, the odds are that the Watkins Firm has deep expertise in your specific industry, and we can provide important connections and insight in your new company.

We can advise you of the pitfalls and challenges that have disrupted other businesses like yours or caused them to fail altogether.  Our business start-up strategy actually helps you to spend less of your start-up cash, more efficiently come up to speed and structure every aspect of your business in a manner that ensures success.  Your proven, experienced business attorney at the Watkins Firm will not only share what to know when starting an LLC in San Diego or throughout California, but will become one of your most trusted business partners and advisors.

Why Do you Need a Lawyer to Start Your Company?

Why do you need a business lawyer at all?  Ask yourself a simple question: Do world-class professional athletes have a coach?  Why do you think the best and highest skilled athlete would need a coach?  The answer lies in the shortest and most successful route to the prize they seek.  In your case, it is the shortest and least expensive route to establishing and building a successful thriving business.  You will need the benefit of our proven, sound advice about what to know when starting an LLC in San Diego or California, as well as a trusted adviser who isn’t looking for a cut of the action.

California has a multitude of unique laws and important legal distinctions (such as bias and protections toward minority ownership interests) that are not addressed in form download sites or start-up packages you can purchase online.  Make sure to ask your Watkins Firm business formation attorney “What is an LLC operating agreement and why is it important to establish this important corporate document at the outset of our company?”

California is the most challenging state in which to be an employer.  There are many laws, regulations, and ordinances which must be followed to the letter.  A single mistake can lead to a wage and hour dispute, or worse, a PAGA class action, exposing your company to a lawsuit seek tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Pro-Tip: “What to know when starting an LLC in San Diego or anywhere in California? Well, the corporate documents, if you choose a corporation, not all corporations are the same. If you choose a limited liability company, if you choose a partnership, a limited liability partnership, there’s all types of different variations. And then you can get into the nitty gritty based on your profession and all the regs and all the professional license requirements and all of the, depending on the kind of company, their resale license and permits. There’s all kinds of little things that your old business lawyer from Watkins Firm knows about <laugh> and can tell you about from the get go. As opposed to you finding out after you’ve made a few mistakes,

You’re giving birth to a living creature that’s been recognized by the United States Supreme Court. And so what it means is birth is what we call capitalizing. And so you have these corporate documents and you have to decide on how much ownership will be and who owns what. Then you decide about what potential ownership positions there are. And then you capitalize it. Either you capitalize it with cash or you capitalize it with goodwill or a combination or a property. But how you capitalize it can determine whether or not it’s a real company or you have all those protections of corporate veil and creditors and you’re personally shielded. So how you start it is very important. And thinking about it, we’ll send you on the right path to avoiding all kinds of pitfalls and trouble.

Limited liability companies came along in the late 80’s or very early 90’s. California was one of the first states to have it. It’s like a corporation or it’s like a partnership and you get to elect which way you want to be. It’s very versatile and it comes with what we call an operating agreement. You don’t have to have it, but it’s a great document that acts sort of like a shareholder agreement.

So five buddies want to get together and buy a bar. They can have an agreement that they all sign that has a lot of, what if this happens, what if that happens and who gets what money? Because sometimes you have sweat equity, you got one guy working the bar all the time and the other guy’s just drinking. So you can have it written in into your operating agreement that the guy who works harder, even though we did or didn’t invest the same amount, can get more money. More distributions with corporations. You can’t do that unless you have a separate shareholder agreement that lays that out and you’re in compliance with all the tighter regulations for corporate laws.

Then once we’ve selected the entity, and that’s going to be based on the nature of what we’re doing and how many people and all of those things, the biggest mistake a lot of new LLC owners make is they don’t pay attention to the LLCs operating agreement. And they take some boilerplate default and then down the road they get into a dispute, and they get into some lawsuit, they’re making some money and there’s real issues that would’ve been easy to address back at the beginning.

Well, when we bring in an LLC, we’ll charge $1,500. You can get it done online for $500, maybe less. All you’re getting is access to someone’s form file. But what we do is we create that relationship with you and we go through and tell you why we’re doing this and how it could impact you and why we’re filling this form out and what your options are and all those things that don’t take very much time, but it puts your mind in the right frame to know why I have this company and what each document does and also what selections you’ve made.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

You Need Sound Advice When Starting an LLC in San Diego

You need sound advice when starting an LLC in San Diego or Southern California.  Your experienced attorney from the Watkins Firm will guide you carefully through each step.  We understand the importance of preserving as much of your start-up capital as possible and work to provide efficient services and counsel with one goal in mind: Your success.

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.  It doesn’t cost you anything to learn more about the Watkins Firm and all we can do to help you to get your new company up and running and profitable in the shortest possible time frame.

 

Meet Dan Watkins:

Daniel W. Watkins is a true people person who sincerely listens. He cares about things that occur in other people’s lives. Dan enjoys digging into the facts and finding creative solutions to problems. He is not shy about giving his opinion either.

Dan’s interest in people make him deeply invested in every relationship and his exuberant personality makes him a true litigator. Dan fights for his clients with a fierce and calculated commitment.

Dan has practiced in the areas of business, medical practices and healthcare business, high tech/science, real estate and employment defense law since 1987. He is a seasoned litigator and true trial attorney with over 50 jury and bench trials to his credit. Dan has successfully represented both large companies and individuals and achieved substantial victories in well-publicized trials throughout California and the U.S.

He is experienced in business and corporate formation and administration, as well as all forms of alternative dispute resolution, including binding arbitration and mediation.

THE ROAD TO BECOMING A BUSINESS LAWYER AND LITIGATOR

Dan has almost 40 years of experience working with, for and against some of the largest insurance companies in the country. He has successfully tried and litigated cases in the areas of Healthcare Compliance, Commercial Litigation, Unfair Business Practices, Fraud, Breach of Contract, Battery, Premises Liability, Product Defect, Medical Malpractice, Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, Construction Defect, as well as Unfair Competition, Defamation, and Trade Secrets.

In December 2003, Dan commenced litigation against Health South Surgery Centers-West, Inc and its’ subsidiaries, exposing the company’s extensive mismanagement and misconduct of its’ surgery centers. Dan has also been asked by some of California’s largest municipalities and corporations to conduct legally required investigations into matters involving alleged employment discrimination and harassment.