The Top Five Books to Navigate the Legal Issues of Startups
Here are the top five books to help you navigate the complex and complicated but incredibly important world of legal issues when creating your own company (such as getting incorporated, figuring out what legal structure whether it be a sole proprietorship or LLC works best for you, etc.). We’ve read through all of these (and more!) to figure out what will be the most helpful for you. Read these books and you might as well be an extra on Suits.
(1) Steve Blank and Bob Dorf, "The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company": This manual serves as a thorough guide for starting a brand new business venture. One of its sections is about navigating the legalities of startup life such as deciding on the appropriate legal structure as well as protecting your ideas, trademarking, copywriting etc.
(2) Peri Pakroo, "The Small Business Start-Up Kit: A Step-by-Step Legal Guide": A step-by-step manual (less of a book, but an actual guide and manual) on developing your own small business that spans the breadth of legal issues, such as picking the correct legal structure/entity type, getting your business registered with the necessary official authorities, and making sure you have a fundamental understanding of employment and tax laws.
(3)Fred S. Steingold, "Legal Guide for Starting & Running a Small Business": Very similar to Pakroo’s book, this will provide additional context on issues such as picking the right legal structure and complying with the appropriate laws and guidelines as you create and grow your small-business.
(4)Stephen M. Bainbridge ,"Corporate Law" : An in-depth guide on corporate governance and corporate law. Bainbridge’s book delivers useful knowledge on important topics such as corporate formation and fundamentals of corporate finance. You will get practical guidance on how you should take into account corporate law when making business decisions, investments, and your strategic initiatives.
(5) Kenneth Clarkson, Roger Miller, and Frank Cross, "Business Law: Text and Cases": Covering a wide range of topics in business law, such as torts and contracts, sales, copyrights, trademarks, and business entity formation. What’s really great about this book is you get a lot of case studies (think Harvard Law School teaching method) and a variety of examples and stories to truly understand the principles you are learning and how they are applied in the actual courtroom.
Making sure you choose the right legal structure and protecting your rights are crucial to mitigating damaging economic and monetary losses. While no one book will serve as a replacement for a practicing lawyer for actual legal advice (so please make sure to go to them if you have an actual legal problem), reading these books will help you learn about and understand the legalities of the issues surrounding start-up life better.
So which of these books have you read already, or new one will you pick up?
On another note, don’t hoard this knowledge for yourself. Share with your friends and family that this list could be helpful to!
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