Legal Issues


Recent Legal Issues Articles

7 Office Space Traps to Avoid

You just closed a small financing round, hired some new team members and are looking to move into a new office space. Here are seven things to avoid when sig...  Read more

8 Interview Questions You Should Never Ask

They seem like friendly, harmless queries, but they can land you in a serious legal tar pit. Here's how to learn safely what you need to know.  Read more

Don't Want to Wait to Cash Out?

I've seen founders get an early share of the upside using this strategy--without putting their companies in danger or angering their investors.  Read more

Case Study: To Sue or Not to Sue

The rival: enormous. Its product: disturbingly similar. The question: Should Mixed Chicks get into a legal battle with a multibillion-dollar giant?  Read more

Ask Inc.: Can a New Hire Sign a Non-Compete Later?

Inc.com columnist Jeff Haden is taking your start-up questions. Up this week: How to handle an employee who won't agree to a non-compete.  Read more

The Employees Most Likely to Embezzle

A new study, which fingers some unlikely suspects, reports that loss due to embezzlement is down slightly this year.  Read more

Raising Money? Don't Get Ripped Off

Before you look for venture capital, you'd better have a great venture lawyer, and be prepared to keep her in the loop.  Read more

Big Money for Cheap Legal Services

Rocket Lawyer, which offers free legal documents and subscriptions for cheap legal advice, has raised $10.8 million.  Read more

China’s Bubble Economy: What it Means to Your Business

Beijing is nursing a real-estate bubble proportionately larger than our own in 2005. If it bursts, the aftershock will hit every business in the U.S.  Read more

Close a Whale of a Deal

So, you've landed a huge enterprise client. Here's how to close the deal without getting stuck in a legal maelstrom over the contract.  Read more

Protecting Your 'Secret Sauce'

You talk about your company all the time, to investors, to clients. What if someone rips off your great ideas?  Read more

How to Fire Your Co-Founder

It can be the most emotionally draining process a start-up ever goes through. Here's how to keep a cool head, and take the right legal precautions.  Read more

How to Run an "Illegal" Start-up

As tech-sector regulations pile on for start-ups, here's how to keep innovating while weathering the legal storm.  Read more

Exploding the Too-Big-To-Fail Myth

Crazed radicals (like the president of the Dallas Fed) think banks should suffer the consequences of their actions instead of relying on the government to un...  Read more

My Crisis of Conscience

The Trademark Company CEO Matthew Swyers went from being a legal mercenary to a warrior defending the trademarks of small businesses.  Read more

Why Start-ups Are Scared of SOPA

Big Technology has come out against the anti-piracy legislation as censorship. Entrepreneurs have a whole different bag of worries.  Read more

How Far Can You Push Customers' Trust?

In the wake of Airbnb's home-vandal scandal, start-ups in the collaborative consumption space are rebuilding peer-to-peer buying's reputation. Here's how.  Read more

4 Cell Phones That Can Take a Beating

Just how tough are rugged phones? We tested them to find out.  Read more

Why the Next Steve Jobs Will be Asian

As Washington maneuvers on skilled immigration reform, the United States is losing its near-monopoly on entrepreneurship by forcing its educated Indian and C...  Read more

5 Supreme Court Cases Entrepreneurs Should Watch

These five cases put businesses on the stand. Here's what's at stake, and how it could affect the way you do business.  Read more

Should You Be Able to Patent a Business Model?

Kickstarter is asking that a patent be invalidated--or at least, that it not be found to be infringing upon it.  Read more

Drawing the Line on Lawyer Fees

Lawyer and founder of MyLawsuit.com Michele Colucci hopes her start-up will change the way people find an attorney and how much is paid in referral fees.  Read more

Woman Fired for Heart Condition

A small New Hampshire defense contractor has fired a woman because she had a heart condition, charges the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  Read more

Man Fired for Being Morbidly Obese

A defense contractor decided a man could not do his desk job because he was morbidly obese. The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission says this is against ...  Read more

Would You Fire Someone for Talking to the Press?

A man exercises his right of free speech and gets fired.  Read more

The Don't-Do Lists

Don't underestimate the importance of what not to do in certain situations. Here, we compiled a list of 14 scenarios and asked business leaders and experts f...  Read more

What the IRS Wants to Know

Is your independent contractor really an employee? Time to come clean.  Read more

Would You Fire Someone for Taking Time Off to Donate a Kidney?

A mother's attempt to save her son spotlights holes in the Family and Medical Leave Act: It doesn't apply to businesses with fewer than 50 employees.  Read more

Would You Fire Someone Over a $1.39-Bag of Chips?

A diabetic employee grabbed a bag of chips to stabilize her blood sugar and paid for them as soon as she could. Walgreens fired her.  Read more

9 Etiquette Rules That the Boss Shouldn't Break

From the office Christmas party to friending employees on social media, here are nine new and old etiquette rules you need to commit to memory.  Read more

Would You Fire Someone for Scaring Off Robbers?

A Walgreens pharmacist fires a gun, he says, in self-defense, and then is fired.  Read more

Judge Orders Re-Hiring of Workers Fired for Facebook Complaints

A National Labor Relations Board judge says workers fired for off-duty griping about their jobs on Facebook should be re-hired.  Read more

Would You Fire Someone for Planking?

A GameStop employee posts a photo of himself planking, and gets himself and the co-worker who took the picture, fired.  Read more

Would You Fire Someone for Refusing to Get a Flu Shot?

Some Michigan hospitals are making flu shots and other vaccines mandatory for employees.  Read more

Would You Fire Someone for Taking Garbage?

An Iowa convenience store employee took no-longer-saleable soup from the dumpster to feed to her dog--and was fired.  Read more