| >> Not that very many startups need any in house lawyers! > [...] in the US it seems you do? I have read and heard a lot of silly lawsuit cases against startups over there which killed the startup because of (feared) legal costs. Don't worry, it's not as bad as it looks. I do see a lot of lawyers running up the bills at the expense of inexperienced entrepreneurs. That really ticks me off. In the first few years of a startup my legal bills are typically under $15K/year -- well under. Setting up the company doesn't cost much, and apart from some minor routine stuff (the odd employee termination mainly, plus a few contracts and the like) there just isn't much legal stuff to do. An A or B round financing shouldn't cost more than $20K even in the valley. In fact legal bills can be lower in the valley because the firms are used to doing the kinds of thing you need. Patent stuff is more expensive but again, most companies have no need to bring that in house. If you hire some overseas people you'll need some legal help but you wouldn't bring that in house. Some businesses do have an explicit legal needs (e.g. Uber) if they are going after a regulated industry. But, for example, one of my startups developed a drug and got it into clinical trials -- even though it's a highly regulated field there was no need for in house counsel, and actually the legal part of that was not huge. If you get sued you'll hire an outside firm that specializes in litigation. |