A couple of weeks ago, while watching the Wizards play a team that I can’t even remember from the corner of my eye in a Skybox, because the game was less interesting than the conversations to be had, I had a conversation with a friend who is the co-founder of a startup based here in Washington, DC. The friend is enrolled in something of a self want help group for startup founders. The conversation revolved around who to go to for legal help in setting up the startup the right way for investors to buy in. There was some degree of irony that a conversation among peers about lawyers was going on in the Skybox of a major law firm that just happened to be courting startup founders. The organizers from the group for startup founders was encouraging participants in the program (that charges startup founders to participate) to buy legal help packages from a sponsor. They made a pretty good pitch because the friend was about ready to go for it. I suppose that is one way to figure out who to use for legal advice. Go with the advice of the experts who are charging you for your time and turning around and recommending people who they are also charging for their time. It is a little like matchmaking for entrepreneurs that you pay for. Magical, right? The only problem is that the lawyers being pushed were not local are dispensing law rapid fire.
It seems like legal advice is becoming a bigger commodity this year than ever before. You may recall Launchbox graduate Legal River – they provide “advertising” for lawyers. Today a Silicon Valley law firm launched Series Seed docs, a legal document guide for guess what. I have personally enjoyed reading the Startup Lawyer’s blog. It seems like only a few years ago that lawyers were having debates about whether to upgrade from their antiquated version of Word Perfect.
It really seems like this is an opportunity for startup founders to get a lot of really good advice while they are on the ground floor without paying megabucks for legal advice. Although I will be quick to point out that documents alone do not make for a legal strategy and certainly don’t count when it comes to executing a legal strategy. Things like Patent filings, Trademark Searches, and other things have yet to be commoditized to the extent that legal documents have as far as I know. Perhaps this is the next step in the legal contest. I would welcome an easy to use patent or trademark filing website that helps make the patent search and filing process easy and less costly.
But so far the lawyers have been lurking in the background at events or behind exhibitor tables. I would welcome some good conversations with the lawyers who work with startup and software law in the community. I know there have been a few events, but perhaps we can get more discussions going in the local startup community so that the legal aspects of taking a startup to market are as openly discussed as the design or software engineering aspects.
If you are a startup friendly lawyer in the DC area I would love to hear from you. Feel free to drop me a line – send a note to: contact@socialmatchbox.com .
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