@deairby there are definitely times when you want/need to have a lawyer in your business.

Here are some examples:

1. Business formation (LLC, Corporation, etc).

It’s possible to do this yourself online and many do either through a site like legalzoom or through your state’s Secretary of State website. The forms themselves are pretty easy to fill out accurately and file.

Where a lawyer really supports this is in the underlying documents, (operating agreement, bylaws, etc.). Lawyers who specialize in creating these types of documents can help ensure that your business is a separate legal entity so that your business and personal assets are kept separate and your personal assets are protected. They also know particular things that would need to go into these documents based on state and local laws.

2. Agreements (client agreements or otherwise)

Sites like legalzoom.com have a lot of form agreements which can form the starting place to create what you need. Going over these forms yourself and understanding them really helps to cement your intentions and help you get clear on exactly what you want to happen in varied situations.

While you can go a long way in creating your own agreements like this, a lawyer can then look it over and add anything that needs to be added according to state law and/or according to scenarios that are specific to your business. Depending on the agreement, sometimes as a business owner you don’t know what you don’t know in terms of what provisions you may need. A lawyer can counsel you on this and help get your agreements as tight as possible.

I myself (as a former and still licensed lawyer) do a lot of my own agreements but I always send them to my business lawyer to look over. She invariably helps me beef them up and make them stronger and more clear. Really helps me sleep at night to be honest with you.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Stef

@deairby – I had obtained a sample contract from another Virtual Assistant that I tweaked to make it pertinent to my business.  

I then had a lawyer do a final review to make sure I was legal for the state of Wisconsin, as well as the fact that I work with clients throughout the US and Canada.  I met him through a networking group that I belonged to and he offered to review it for free!  You have to love that.

For contracts, I would definitely recommend a final review through a lawyer.  You want to make sure you aren’t going to run into problems in the future.