You may be wondering or searching for what to look for in a San Diego business attorney. California is the most challenging state in which to conduct business, especially if you are an employer. If you are going to business in the State of California, you need an experienced lawyer who knows our laws and can guide every aspect of your operations and work as an employer. The short list of answers must include experience, sound advice and counsel, a full slate of business legal services, the skill to help you to protect the corporate veil and the ability to get you and your company through and out of any dispute or lawsuit which might arise in the course of the life of your company.
Key Takeaways of What to Look For in a San Diego Business Attorney or California Company Lawyer:
- Experience is the greatest skill your California or San Diego business attorney can bring to the table. Especially when that experience includes working with industries and companies (perhaps dozens or hundreds of entities) just like your own. Business is about the protections of the corporate veil, and the ability to take prudent business risk without worrying about your personal money and assets.
- Look for an attorney or law firm with a broad range of legal services and transactional lawyers, as well as a team of experienced dispute resolution and/or trial attorneys who can help your company through and out of any dispute or lawsuit that might develop. If you’re going to be in business in California, it isn’t a matter of “if” you will become involved in a dispute or lawsuit, it’s “when.”
- California is the most difficult, highly regulated, and litigious state in which to be an employer. Look for a business attorney who can help with every aspect of being an employer, including work with the employee handbook, policies and procedures, classification and time keeping regulations, and defending and resolving any potential dispute that might arise, even a class action or PAGA lawsuit.
Experience Matters
Experience is what to look for in a San Diego business attorney, and throughout the state of California. The effective San Diego business attorneys at the Watkins Firm help your business to thrive and provide insight into your decisions with a depth of experience in your industry. The business attorneys at the Watkins Firm have more than four decades of experience serving San Diego business owners and companies across the state of California as one of their most trusted advisors, or as general business counsel. In this role, we advise our clients based upon these years of real world experience with similar businesses, and connect our clients with a network of professionals who have “been there, done that.” This allows our clients to not only avoid the mistakes and pitfalls that have caused other companies to struggle or fail, but to accelerate the speed with which their business is established, and position their company for exceptional growth while reducing risk and potential pitfalls.
Sound Advice and Counsel
Sound advice and counsel are part of what to look for in a business attorney. Just as any professional athlete relies on the experience and expertise of a qualified coach, our business clients rely on the attorneys at the Watkins Firm to help them to sharpen their skills, avoid the traps and pitfalls that have harmed or delayed other businesses in the past, and reach maximum performance and efficiency in their own business. We guide clients through critical steps such as hiring new employees, structuring and executing profitable and successful business transactions, acquisition of competitors or complimentary businesses and/or asset purchase transactions, and attracting new investors without relinquishing too much control or power.
Legal Services, Protecting the Corporate Veil and Effective, Proven Contracts
We provide a broad range of business legal services to help to protect the corporate veil by making sure corporate compliance and governance is maintained. This includes counsel on the selection of members of the Board of Directors, executive compensation packages and severance, as well as compliance with all federal, state and local employment laws and regulatory requirements. We provide sound business contracts based upon our extensive proprietary library of proven successful performance. These libraries are kept up to date based upon changes in your industry as well as federal, state and local laws and ordinances. We then custom tailor these contracts in a cost-effective manner to meet your specific requirements.
Advice, Counsel, and Legal Defense for a California Employer
California is the most highly regulated, litigious, and challenging state in which to be an employer. If your company intends to have workers in California, you are going to need an experienced, proven business attorney that provides employment defense services as well. The best defense for any California employer begins with a good offense! You will need effective employment contracts, insight into arbitration agreements and guidance regarding conflicts in California law with business practices in other states. For example, any contract or verbiage associated with non-compete intentions is illegal in the State of California. What works elsewhere will not work here, even if you only have a few employees in California. You need a lawyer you can pick up the phone and call on a moments notice whenever you suspect there may be an issue or dispute with one of your workers (and you probably won’t even get billed for most of these calls!). Ask about the California Private Attorneys General Act or PAGA, and how the State of California pays workers in our state to look for and pursue potential wrongful actions by their employers. You need an experienced California and San Diego business attorney who can help you to do things right, and to be there to resolve any employment-related dispute or lawsuit as an employer.
Resolve Disputes in a Timely and Cost-Effective Manner
Problem solving is an important ingredient in the equation of what to look for in a business attorney. The Watkins Firm takes a unique approach to disputes that is designed to resolve litigation or business disagreements in the shortest possible time frame and with the minimum of expense required to accomplish your goals. Our attorneys are able to resolve the vast majority of our client’s business disputes and lawsuits through effective, leveraged negotiation. This is the fastest and least expensive strategy to resolve a business dispute. We represent clients in negotiations, the filing or defense of a lawsuit, settlement conferences, mediation, arbitration and at trial when necessary.
Pro-Tip: “We have of course, very knowledgeable attorneys, but we also have a higher percentage of support staff, paralegals, administrators in house, HR people so that when our clients have a basic question about employment practices and they don’t want to spend the money to speak with an attorney, they can contact one of our administrators or one of our paralegals and ask a question, costs them a lot less money. And everybody here has been working on these cases for years and years. So the knowledge might not be at the fingertips of the employer, but we answer that same question every week for one of our clients. Our clients appreciate that they can reach out and get the right answer and insight quickly, and often they won’t even get a bill for that call!
After 38+ years of doing this and after thousands of different companies, a lawyer tends to know more about how to run a business than most people would expect. We go to college for seven years, but we learned our whole career from other people’s mistakes and other people’s successes. When they come in, they tell us the story and we ask them questions about what kind of business this is going to be – we want to know from a lawyer’s perspective. Is this a high risk business? Is this a trending business? Is this a highly regulated business, those kind of things. So we can advise. And then we ask about other things and what they’re doing and just to get a gauge on how sophisticated they are or how unsophisticated they are so we can help.
We’ve had business clients just like you and your company for almost four decades. And when our clients do well, our attorneys feel like they’re doing well outside of whether they’re getting paid a whole bunch of money or not or fees or anything. We have long term clients. And our attorneys really feel good when things turn out for them because, on the litigation side, they go through stress and we go through stress. And when we resolve a dispute and our clients are happy, we’re happy. And we’re proud to help their transactions to flow smoothly.
Our clients have owned their company for years and years and years, and they want to sell it. They believe they have a good deal on the table and we want to do everything we can to make sure that goes smoothly. And our client gets all of their benefits of the bargain, everything they wanted. We want to do our best to make sure they get that. And if it happens and they’re happy, then we are proud. We’re very proud and we’re happy for them. So this combined knowing someone for 30+ years, their highs and lows, their difficult times, their good times, you can imagine, you really feel a bond for your clients.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner
Now You Know a Bit More About What to Look For in a San Diego Business Attorney
Now you know a little more about what to look for in a San Diego business attorney, or when searching for the right law firm for your California company. Look for decades of successful clients and business experience here in San Diego and throughout the State of California. Make sure you have access to the sound advice and counsel you need at every step of your business journey. Your business attorneys firm should provide extensive legal services, protect your corporate veil and provide proven, successful business contracts. Finally, your business attorney should have a proven track record of successfully resolving small, medium and substantial business disputes, lawsuits and class actions in a timely, cost-efficient manner.
Build a solid foundation. Expand your business skills. Avoid disputes and the pitfalls that have destroyed other companies. Our experienced San Diego business attorneys help your business to thrive and profit while drawing on insight from decades of real life San Diego and Southern California experience. We invite you to listen to our Podcast Episode 6 – Why Do You Need a Business Attorney, review the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.
Meet Daniel Watkins:
Daniel W. Watkins is a true people person who sincerely listens. He cares deeply about what others are going through. Dan enjoys digging into the facts and finding creative solutions to problems. He contributes his insights candidly and constructively.
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 trusted litigation strategist 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.
