Incorporation Service Company v. Law Firm
Many new business owners ponder over whether they need a lawyer to incorporate a legal entity for their new business venture or whether that should use an incorporation service company.
A business lawyer can provide an entrepreneur with valuable legal advice covering many aspects of starting a business. These matters can include incorporation and also business structuring, financing, contracts, partnerships, taxes and other regulations and laws that may be applicable to your business.
A business attorney typically charges by the hour and legal fees for an experienced specialist ranges from $200-$600 an hour depending on the attorney, his or her law firm and your location.
Now, if you hire an attorney for advice, this may be well worth the costs but you should probably have an incorporation service company do the actual task of creating your legal entity. Then, your lawyer can handle any documents required post formation to document and structure the business.
In fact, most law firms outsource the actual incorporating of a business entity or formation of an LLC to these same incorporation service companies. This is because they are efficient and they can do this very fast.
Even more importantly, they specialize in knowing what is required in each state for a proper incorporation and they have perfected the process and requirements.
An incorporation service company is very different from a law firm in that you will not get any professional or legal advice from one of these businesses. They are there to save you the time and effort required to research and learn your state’s administrative requirements for creating a legal entity. Also, they perform the actual document preparation, name search clearances and ongoing administering of your filing with the state.
So, an incorporation service company serves an important purpose and provides services used not only by business owners but by law firms themselves. But do not expect them to be a substitute of a good business lawyer when it comes to getting the advice you need to structure or finance your business or to determine relevant legal matters.
Now, do not make the mistake of using an inexperienced or shoddy online incorporation service- unfortunately there are some out there. Read the independent reviews available on this site that only cover the most reputable providers and you will find one suitable for you.
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