What if you could find business-savvy startup lawyers who are efficient and tech-smart?
You found us.
goodcounsel offers a range of services for startups and small privately held companies, delivered practically and unpretensiously.
For startups and their founders, our services span the startup lifecycle from founding through exit. We assist – with equal dedication and commitment – new founders who are seeking practical guidance to launch their companies, as well as experienced entrepreneurs who appreciate the availability of capable commercial and transactional counsel and are seeking alternatives to large law firms or permanent legal staff.
Below is a list of the services we offer. Click on the links to explore further.
Early-Stage Services
These services are generally needed for bootstrapped or founder-funded companies that are setting the stage for future growth and success.
- Company formation and startup work for corporations, limited liability companies, and other entities, from simple single-owner entities to multiple founder situations.
- Online agreements such as website terms of use and privacy policies, DMCA compliance, and DMCA agent services.
- Commercial contract drafting and negotiation, including for services (MSAs and SOWs), software-as-a-service (SaaS), licensing arrangements, bank loans and other financing, and leases.
Growth-Stage Services
These services are directed toward companies that have demonstrated some market acceptance and are ready to seek funding to support growth. We recommend that companies at this stage consider a CaaS engagement to help manage their ongoing legal needs.
- Private investment transactions, using convertible instruments or priced equity, and related securities compliance.
- Equity incentive plan set up for employees, advisors, and other service providers.
- Employee and service provider matters such as at-will offer letters, employment agreements, employee handbooks, company protective agreements, independent contractor agreements, and separation documentation.
Exit Services
Founders are passionate about their companies and take enormous satisfaction from and pride in bringing their visions to life. Ultimately, of course, they also wish to see their sweat equity result in financial rewards as well, and perhaps to have the opportunity to move on to other endeavors. Thus, for a successful company – unless the founders wish to continue running it indefinitely as a cash-generating business – there comes a time for an “exit” or a “liquidity event.” goodcounsel can help companies and their founders successfully negotiate and close these important transactions.
- Mergers & acquisitions
- Private equity investment transactions
Other Services
Finally, we offer services that may be useful at any point during a company’s existence or are focused on individual representation rather than company representation.
- General corporate advice and company cleanup.
- Representation for individuals, such as reviewing employment and equity terms and handling separation negotiations.
- For matters requiring specialists such as patent prosecution, trademark registrations, and litigation, goodcounsel has developed a network of co-counsel to help our clients achieve their objectives.
Every company is different and the legal world can be confusing. If you need general legal advice or you’re unsure about what services you need, we would be happy to talk with you about it.
Whether you are an entrepreneur investing in growth or a small businessperson trying to keep operations profitable, you are trying to maximize the value of every dollar spent. This is why, in addition to offering hourly fees that represent enormous value relative to the experience of our team, goodcounsel prefers – and is frequently able – to handle matters on a fixed-fee basis.
We are also pleased to offer innovative Counsel-as-a-ServiceSM (CaaS) plans, which include a menu of ongoing services for a reasonable, fixed monthly fee. Introduced to our clients in 2016, CaaS answers the question: how do you get the expertise and responsiveness of an in-house counsel at a price you can afford? CaaS, essentially, is an outsourced general counsel service that scales along with your company. It includes legal compliance and administration, ad-hoc advice, a library of basic agreement templates, regularly-scheduled planning calls to discuss both pressing legal concerns and future needs, and more. Read more about our CaaS plan.
Also, take a look at these helpful GoodGuides:
- The goodcounsel GoodGuide to the basics of startup structuring
- The goodcounsel GoodGuide to the basics of private offerings
- The goodcounsel GoodGuide to the basics of management equity