4 key ways to protect your business to avoid court

This blog post was first published on 19 January 2021

The content of this blog post is information only and does not include legal advice. 

It doesn’t matter whether or not you are someone who loves watching legal dramas such as Suits, Law & Order or the Jury or reading crime fiction, as a business owner, the idea of being taken court is anything but exciting or glamourous. The formalities, the mystery and the wigs are no longer intriguing. You can’t imagine feeling gripped and on edge of your seat to as you’re waiting for and wondering what the judgment will be (at least not in a good way) when your business and livelihood is potentially at stake. As a business owner (and as a person), the idea of getting taken to court is scary and a big weight to have at the back of your mind.

We know legal can feel really stressful and overwhelming

Whilst we’re all about legal here, we know that legal can be boring and stressful when you’re spinning different plates and navigating various moving parts in your business and you don’t have a legal background. The things that could potentially go wrong and the possibility of getting taken to court is very likely to be one of the last things that you want to think about or deal with as a business owner. That said, we know that for many business owners it’s something that’s lurking at the back of their mind. Whether they’re avoiding thinking about it, bogged down while trying to work it out on their own or worried about if they’ve got the legal side of things right after giving it a go on their own. It’s a heavy weight to carry whether you’re just starting out in business and have a long list of things you need to do to get set up or you’re about to launch a new offering, or are mid launch, delivering a course and/or are fully booked and busy attending to numerous 1:1 clients.

What can you do about it?

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Whilst we cannot guarantee that you will not get taken to court, there are some things within your control to greatly reduce the likelihood. We want you to feel calm, confident and empowered in your business, knowing that the legal side of things is covered and your business is legit. Today on the blog we’re going to be sharing 4 ways to protect your business to avoid court. At the end of the blog we’ll also be sharing our how we can support you so you know what you need to do to legally protect your unique business in just 6 weeks in our course Get Legit®, so that you can rest assured knowing how to legally protect your business and that it's legit.

Clear & Valid Contracts

Your contracts are the legal foundations of business relationships. It’s important to ensure that you have these firmly place and that they’re solid so that you both know where you stand from a legal perspective. That way, clients know what they can reasonably expect from working from you, the terms and where where you both stand legally. Whilst you can’t guarantee that you won’t be taken to court, getting your legal contracts in place is essential so that you can do what you can to avoid it. It’s important that contracts are carefully drafted to ensure that they cover everything necessary to protect your unique business and so that you can actually deliver on what you promise and are valid and therefore enforceable by law. We’ll be covering what you need to include and why in our 6 week course Get Legit®. You may have heard of our templates before, but we know that many of you might want more extensive support from us so that you know how they work in practice for your unique business.

Being in contract

It’s one thing to have contracts in place and ensuring that you’re meeting each individual aspect of the contract, as well as the overall spirit of the contract is another matter. Part of doing what you can to ensure you’re within the terms of contract starts with being realistic about what you can offer and ensuring you create a contract that you can fulfil on to begin with, as well as being conscientious and meeting the terms laid out.

Another important aspect of ensuring you’re keeping to contract is maintaining good communication. We recommend approaching providing your services with the mindset of being open to receiving feedback and making adjustments where appropriate. In addition, it’s beneficial to take the lead and have various check in points during the term of your contract so you can give them the opportunity to provide any feedback and do everything you can to provide them with a great service. Depending on the service you offer, this check in might involve asking questions such as:

“How do you feel things are going?”

“Do you feel like you’re moving forward?”

“Is there anything you like more support with, and if so, what?”

Coming to a solution outside of Court

Whilst having clear contracts and ensuring you fulfil them is so important to do what you can to avoid being taken to court, it’s important to highlight again that you cannot guarantee that someone won’t take you to court. However, if this does happen to you, not all is lost, though how you respond to this is important. You can seek a solution outside of court. In some situations, they may look like simply giving them either a percentage of or all of their money back. Whilst this is far from an ideal situation, it’s important to think about the bigger picture and weighing up the costs to you and potentially your brand reputation. Going to court is expensive and takes up a lot of time and energy ,and when you’re running a business your time and energy is precious. Giving someone their money back may actually be much less expensive than going through court proceedings. In addition, going to court may also effect how much time and energy you can give to your business and therefore may affect your sales and income potential.

Another way of coming to a solution outside of court is through Alternative Dispute Resolution, which relates to a variety of ways of solving a consumer problem without the parties having to go to court and includes conciliation, mediation and arbitration. These ways tend to be cheaper, more flexible, faster and less stressful. If someone has threatened to take you to court or has begun legal proceedings and you need further support on this, you can fill out the form here and one of the team will get back to you.

Be on the mark from the start & get your trade mark

So far we’ve discussed what you can do to avoid being taken to court by clients/customers, but it’s also important to discuss how you can reduce the likelihood being taken to court by other business owners. One important thing is do in this regard is to get your trade mark sorted so you can avoid using someone else’s trade mark by mistake. It’s easy to believe that this won’t happen to you, but sadly we see many business owners who receive letters requesting that they cease and desist from trading under the relevant name from other businesses- sometimes in the middle of a launch. Whether you’re just starting out in business or your a while in and you’ve been putting it off, it’s important to get your trade mark sorted from the beginning so that you can rest assured that your brand is legally protected. You may have heard of our mini course How To Get  A Trademark, whereby Lucy teaches you how to file for a trade-mark in the 5-days. We’ll also be guiding you through this process extensively over in Get Legit, so that the process of legally protecting your business and brand is simple and easy for you and you can avoid someone else taking you to court for using their trade mark by mistake.

Learn how to protect your business & in 6 weeks!

We see so many business owners wasting so much time trying to make shift the legal side of their business and feeling stressed in the process. Please know that it doesn’t have to be this way- it’s possible that getting your legal sorted can feel empowering. It’s possible to feel educated in the process and you can finish feeling reassured that the legal side of things has been covered correctly. We are passionate about supporting you to get the legal side of things sorted, so that you can continue focussing on doing what you love and are good at in your business while knowing that you’ve got the knowledge and documents in place to ensure that your business is legit.

Let us help you to put your worries to rest and get the legal protection you need by joining our next round of Get Legit, our six week course to reduce the overwhelm over and take control of the legal elements of protecting your clients, your brand and your business. 

By the end of the 6 weeks you will have a clear understanding on how to protect your clients and your business from a legal perspective, so you can feel calm and confident about the legal side of your business. You will also have a clear plan on the tasks you need to implement in the short term and also a checklist of what elements of business you need to review as you grow, scale and launch new products.

During our 6 weeks together we’ll be focusing on key aspects of legally protecting your business. We will cover:

• The legal elements of selling - including terms, disclaimers, when you need to provide refunds and the different wording required for sales made online, in person or as an electronic download

• How to protect your client’s - GDPR - what you must do by law and how to ensure you stay up-to-date

• How to protect your business - Copyright and trade marks

• Contracts - what you need to include and why

• The ongoing legal tasks for running a business

Think of us as your helpful big sister when it comes to legal. We are here to hold your hand and support you with the process of getting the protection you need to protect your business and Get Legit®. That way, you can save yourself a lot of time, energy and hassle and free up time to focus on doing the work you love. We want you to feel calm and confident that the legal side of things has not only been taken care of, but has also been done correctly.

We hope that this week’s blog was helpful and feel free to send us an email to [email protected] if you have any questions about the Get Legit® The Course, if you want receive further support or you simply want to get in contact with us.

Team Lucy Legal x