Wisconsin Business Law and Litigation
A blog dedicated to Wisconsin business law and business litigation matters, authored by Chris Moander of the Moander Law Firm.

Sharmil McKee of the Small Business Blog by McKee Law Office reminds us business owners that the price of stamps is going up…again.

Perhaps this might be a catalyst for a business to reduce it’s physical mailings and move toward email and PDF’s as a cheaper and faster alternative?

I prefer and recommend email for a number of reasons, one of which is particularly relevant to litigation - that emails can preserve the who, what, when, where, why, and even how of communications between businesses and individuals. Such information can be incredibly important during discovery and early phases of a lawsuit. A litigant can show that s/he did send certain documents at a given time, or that things said were memorialized - these are great tools for counsel and encourage necessary prudence of tongue and act by businesses.

Another benefit to email usage is cost. You spend less on stamps, but you can also organize your incoming information without having to do much other than create folders on your computer (versus typing and printing a letter or telephone call).

Uncle Sam’s postal price increases could be seen as creating unintended incentives for more CYA-centered actions by businesses…

Intellectual Property (”IP”) has great value for companies of all types, not just those in the tech/computer/software industry, which means that all business owners need to understand the concepts to protect their companies. If you, as a business owner, have no idea what IP is, I recommend you check out the US Patent Office’s site on small business IP. The site explains patents, trademarks, and copyrights in clear terms, along with methods for filing or protecting each. Also, make sure you examine the downloadable materials to help educate you about what you can do to protect your IP and what the U.S. government is doing to do the same. Other media are also available for your review.

IP can be worth a lot of money and, in some cases, may be your money - think “golden arches.”

Drafting contracts of any kind sounds simple, but is in fact far from it. Ask Mr. Adams and Mr. Fox - contract drafting is about precision usage of the english language in such a way that an agreement can be read in one and only one way. Such usage is a very lofty goal, but is essential to good agreements.

However, a meeting of the minds is not the only facet of reaching an agreement. Hanna Hasl-Kelchner at Legal Literacy points out that cultural, geographical, and even regional differences can and will impact the contract formation process. She cites a WSJ article on the matter. Several points in the article are particularly relevant to smaller business, specifically the regional differences in the U.S. (which are significant).

Yes, businesses across the U.S. operate under very similar contract laws, but we also have very different notions of how to boil a relationship down to an agreement. I can recall people I knew growing up in Iowa who would more than willingly rely on a handshake based on local theories of doing business (essentially the terms and concepts local farmers used in doing business with each other). Everyone in the area “got it.” Outsiders, such as representatives from large multinationals based in a major city or another region, would have notions that differed from the locals, creating a potential for misunderstanding. This situation may sound like it needs a run-of-the-mill contract negotiation, but I disagree. What is missing here is understanding and education of both sides as to the background and experiences of the other - the key to reaching precision terms and a meeting of the minds. Other examples could be the “northerner” doing business with the “southerner,” or the L.A. company selling goods to the N.Y. company - the variations are numerous.

The business lawyer needs to be more than just the contract expert. She needs to do her cultural research, keep her ears and mind open, and ask questions. In other words, the business lawyer needs to constitute the complete package of law and business.

UPDATE: I just came across a blog that addresses cultural issues for lawyers, albeit in a litigation context.