A transactional lawyer, who is sometimes called a business law attorney or an employment lawyer, can be one of the most valuable allies you can have on your team as an employer. This is because transactional lawyers offer services to their clients, either individuals or organizations, to help ensure that everything they do is legal, especially contracts. While these services are clearly valuable to employers, there are situations where an employee or a freelancer would want to work with a transactional lawyer.
If you have never thought about how a lawyer could help to improve your business, then it might be hard to imagine what a transactional lawyer could bring to the table. To better understand the value of working with a transactional lawyer, we will first take a closer look at what transactional lawyers do. With this in place, we’ll return to the ways that a transactional lawyer could help you, as well as the benefits of hiring a transactional lawyer.
What Does a Transactional Lawyer Do Exactly?
A transactional lawyer oversees contracts and agreements, primarily in situations where finances are involved. For example: recently, Elon Musk purchased the social media company Twitter. With over forty billion dollars involved in the transaction, both Twitter and Musk hired excellent transactional lawyers to ensure that everything went as smoothly as possible.
These lawyers would act in the same fashion as any transaction lawyer. They would verify any documentation involved in the transaction. They would negotiate on behalf of their client regarding changes to specific clauses in the contracts. Additionally, they would offer legal counsel, and advice pulled from years of experience in the field.
Transactional lawyers are definitely recommended in cases like this, where a business is being bought or sold. However, this is far from the only situation in which a transactional lawyer could be helpful. Mergers and acquisitions, real estate transactions, licensing, trademarks, employment agreements, formation of legal entities, and income tax filings are all examples of the kind of work that a transactional lawyer may take on. Of course, it will depend on the specific transactional lawyer you work with, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and whether or not they specialize in any specific area.
How Could a Transactional Lawyer Help Me?
A transactional lawyer may be able to help with several different areas of expertise. For example, some transactional lawyers deal more with estate planning issues than employment law issues. These lawyers would help with drafting wills, trust agreements, and the like.
Where you’ll find transactional lawyers the most helpful is in matters of employment law. When you are an employer, there is a lot that hangs over your head. You have to ensure that you stay above the board in many different areas at once. You have employment agreements that need to be drafted and signed, real estate transactions to expand your operations, and acquisitions to absorb the competition.
The term “transactional” suggests that lawyers in this field are primarily used to ensure that large transactions proceed without any issues. While this is true, it also obscures the importance of working with a transactional lawyer. Even if your company is not involved in large transactions, you can and should still consider working with a transactional lawyer.
A lot of what a transactional lawyer does is beneficial to any company. Contracts may not seem like the most crucial part of your business, but they can save you a lot of trouble down the road. Working with a transactional lawyer to ensure everything is above board can protect you from future litigation or disputes. By ensuring that your business is in order, a transactional lawyer provides you with protection against potential liability issues. Hiring a professional may seem like tossing away money, but it’s money well spent when it means avoiding a far more expensive lawsuit.
What Are the Benefits of Hiring a Transactional Lawyer?
There are many benefits to hiring a transactional lawyer, such as the following:
- You can rest assured in the knowledge that the contracts that you or your company use have been drafted by a professional, which means that they have been considered in-depth and according to the letter of the law.
- You can trust that any transactions your business makes are going to be scrutinized so as to identify and then solve any problems prior to the completion of the transaction, rather than having to scramble to fix things after the fact.
- You have a layer of protection against litigation since you worked with an experienced professional whose job is to help you avoid legal issues and liabilities.
- If you are in need of a transactional lawyer with a different set of skills for another line of inquiry, yours can offer you recommendations on who you should trust.
- You’ll have more free time to focus on the areas of the business that need your attention since you won’t have to research legal matters on your own.
- Adding a lawyer to your transactions may result in better deals since you have a legal professional backing you up.
- A transactional lawyer may be able to act as an intermediary in specific issues, which allows you more time for what excites you.
- An experienced lawyer will have networking connections that may prove helpful.
When Should I Consider Hiring a Transactional Lawyer?
If you’ve read the above sections and found yourself wondering if you should hire a transactional lawyer, chances are good that you should. At the very least, you should reach out to a transaction lawyer and see about arranging a meeting. Bring along any questions you have and the reasons why you think a transactional lawyer is necessary. The chances are that you’re right, and you can discuss what steps to take next.
If you’ve been running a business for some time, and you haven’t worked with a transaction lawyer, then you really should consider doing so. You may have been opening yourself up to certain liabilities without realizing it, and that might come back to haunt you at any time.