Business Law Blog

And Finally . . . SEC Adopts New Crowdfunding Regulation

After a wait of some three and a half years after the JOBS Act was adopted in April 2012, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has at last adopted Crowdfunding Regulations to permit startup companies to raise new equity funding through crowdfunding.  The new regulations are lengthy (some 686 pages) and complex, and provide both…

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Crowdfunding Ground Rules (If and When Adopted)

Many entrepreneurs were initially excited about a new law adopted in early 2012, the CROWDFUND Act included as a part of the JOBS Act, which they believed would permit investment crowdfunding to be used for funding emerging growth companies.  (As discussed our prior blog post, investment crowdfunding is different than patronage crowdfunding, where funders do…

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The Crowdfunding Wait Continues . . .

And the wait continues. . . .  In April of 2012, Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act).  This legislation promised to create jobs and grow the economy by improving access to the public capital markets for emerging growth companies.  It also claimed to encourage entrepreneurship…

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Krause Law Sponsoring Inaugural Make48 in Kansas City

Krause Law is excited to be sponsoring the inaugural “Make48,” which is a unique new “invent-a-thon” event being held today (April 17) and throughout this upcoming weekend at Kansas City’s Union Station.  After hearing from a distinguished array of speakers today and then receiving a late-afternoon challenge to create a specific new product idea, teams…

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Commonly Overlooked Issues in Confidentiality Agreements

At least once a week we receive a request from a client to either prepare or review a non-disclosure agreement.  The client often explains, “All we need is a boiler plate document, nothing special, so just use one of your standard forms,” or “This all looks pretty standard to us.” At Krause Law we believe…

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Best Practices in Selecting Legal Counsel Part 6: Conclusion (Or, Using Legal Counsel)

Perhaps it’s an obvious point, but once a client selects the right legal counsel for their business, then the client also needs to do a great job in using legal counsel.  Yet, clients often fail to get the best results from the legal counsel they chose by not knowing how best to use them.  Here…

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Top 5 Cities Worldwide for Entrepreneurs?

Kansas City is honored of course to be ranked in the top five cities in the world for entrepreneurs, according to a just-published article in the Kansas City Business Journal.  The evaluation factors are interesting, and one wonders whether they talked to entrepreneurs themselves, or mostly to city politicians, administrators and staff.  Krause Law agrees…

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Best Practices in Selecting Legal Counsel Part 5: Think Long Term

All too often a client selects a lawyer primarily based on what the client needs “right now” and not “from here on.” For example, a start-up client will often ask a lawyer what it would cost to draft an operating agreement for a limited liability company, looking for a fixed price, and perhaps shopping for…

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Best Practices in Selecting Legal Counsel Part 4: Know the Fee Arrangement

One of the most common reasons for complaints being filed against lawyers with their governing professional boards is a dispute over a fee arrangement. Unfortunately, lawyers often fail to provide appropriate clarity on what fee arrangement the client should expect. An attorney-client fee agreement should always be in writing. An exchange of e-mails is certainly…

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Best Practices in Selecting Legal Counsel Part 3: Buy the Right Product

Lawyers have been their own worst enemies in creating false impressions of what is the product they are selling. Hourly rates can suggest they are selling time. Fixed fees for certain bundles of documents can suggest they are selling paper. And so, clients naturally may think in terms of how much time has been spent…

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