Why do we only focus on business and corporate law?
Specifically, we are advocates to small businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups.
We strongly believe in the general business principle discovered by Henry Ford that specialization results in the best possible outcome. We’ve found this to be true in our legal practice. Repetition in the same narrow legal matters means we understand the unique issues relating to business and corporate law, we aren’t starting from scratch on each matter, and the client benefits economically from an efficient delivery. Over more than a decade of practice we have developed a repository of resources that we are confident will quickly resolve your business law matter.
Finally, we love business law. So much in the legal profession can be negative. We love seeing our clients succeed and the positive impact it has on our local communities. When our clients’ businesses succeed, we are helping them win, their families win, their employees win, and their employees’ families win. That is a win-win-win-win, and truly fulfilling for us professionally. We define our success by our clients’ successes.
Do I really need a Utah business lawyer?
Legal matters involving businesses, corporations, and startups can be complex and technical. State, federal, and even international laws effecting businesses easily surpass hundreds of thousands of laws, rules, and regulations. Knowledge of laws also doesn’t cover the nuances in language and legal procedures a skilled lawyer will understand. Even minor legal issues if overlooked can become major legal headaches. We can’t tell you the number of cases we handle in which the business owners thought they were saving a little by trying to DIY their legal work, and then ended up in a very expensive legal dispute as a result.
Good legal work solves problems, great legal work prevents them.
Trusting your legal matter to an experienced business lawyer who has handled thousands of legal matters like yours will give you the peace of mind your legal matter has been handled properly. Solid experience from an actual legal professional will ensure you avoid critical mistakes, transactional risks, and overlooking important issues, and potentially that will cost you more to fix than if it had been done right to start with.
Can’t I just use a DIY legal service?
There’s a saying, “nothing is quite as expensive as free.” DIY legal websites or services are not a substitute for a qualified business attorney with years of experience. DIY websites use boilerplate forms without context to your circumstance or transaction, and often riddled with mistakes and obsolete on the law. Issues like alternative dispute resolution, choice of law, venue, and key contractual terms can easily be missed increasing the odds your legal rights have not been fully represented putting you at risk.
If you’re considering using a DIY legal service, consider this disclaimer, verbatim, from a popular DIY legal website:
“We are not a law firm or a substitute for an attorney or law firm. We cannot provide any kind of advice, explanation, opinion, or recommendation about possible legal rights, remedies, defenses, options, selection of forms or strategies.”
In other words, even the DIY legal websites disclaim the quality of their services, effectively saying you should use an experienced lawyer to clean up their work. Instead of paying twice, once for the DIY service and then for a lawyer to fix it, you are far better off economically and quality wise using an experienced business lawyer to begin with. Imagine a potential large client or venture cap investor asking for legal documents (yes, they will ask). A sophisticated party will be able to spot low quality DIY legal documents undermining your credibility. In a way, quality legal work actually pays for itself because it builds value into your business. For businesses who are serious about building an enterprise, solid legal work by an experienced business attorney is the foundation of your success.
How is Johnstun Law different from other law firms?
We believe in specialization, high quality, value add, and maintaining a close relationship with our clients. Our sole focus is business, corporate, and startups law. We are passionate about delivering exceptional value added legal results in these three highly interrelated areas. Our best lawyering often is when we deliver uncomplicated results and make things look easy.
Large or small, every legal matter we handle receives the same level of commitment and expertise. Delivering the highest quality legal services includes using practitioner technology tools that increase the value add to clients.
Our billing policies are transparent and adaptable to a client’s circumstances. Clients know in great detail what we do, when, and the time spent.
Finally, we listen to our clients and talk to them, not at them. Your access to our legal staff, we believe, is unrivaled in the Utah legal community. One of the things clients regularly tell us is how easy it is to communicate with us. We’re actually somewhat fanatical about communicating with clients.
We encourage you to attempt to contact our competition and then us to compare how quickly and easily we engage with clients.
For more information please contact us or call us at 801-980-5300.
What legal services does Johnstun Law provide?
Our core legal practice areas include the day-to-day legal services that small businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups need to succeed.
A sample of legal matters we handle include (but not limited to):
- contract drafting and review
- contract disputes
- business to business collections
- employment law guidance
- employment contracts
- partner disputes
- business valuations
- vesting agreements
- buy-sell transactions
- business litigation
- corporate formations
- registered agent services
- trademarks, copyrights, and intellectual property protection
- demand letters
- license and vendor agreements
- industry regulatory compliance
- mediation, arbitration, and dispute resolution
- investment and securities fraud
- capital raising, seed funding, convertible equity, and term sheet transactions
- mergers and acquisitions
- succession and exit planning
How much will my legal project cost?
It depends on your legal matter and objectives. Our deep experience in business law means we have resolved many legal matters like yours. Understanding how much your legal matter will cost begins with contacting us to discuss your legal matter. Our fees and billing are structured to provide clients with maximum value. We have found over the years that we provide the same high quality legal services provided by big firms and often at about half the cost. While we are not a discount law firm, nor do we want to be, we run a leaner operation without compromising quality, and pass those savings on to our clients.
The one area we will never compromise is providing the highest quality legal services.
How does Johnstun Law charge for its services?
Depending on your project, our legal fees will be structured on an hourly, flat fee, mixed, and in limited cases, a contingency basis. Typically we work on an hourly basis. Whenever practical, and without sacrificing quality, we will delegate work within the firm to the staff member who can perform the work for a lower billable rate under the supervision of the most experienced attorney. When you contact us to discuss your legal matter we will clearly discuss how we will bill for your specific legal matter. While in many cases it is impossible to estimate your total fees, we will nonetheless try as much as possible to provide you with an estimated range. For entrepreneurs and startups, when possible we may agree to work on a set project budget. Regardless of the fee structure, our goal is to provide you with legal services transparently, and at a price that is a fair exchange for the services and value provided.
Do we offer a “free” consultation?
No. There’s a saying, “if the service is free, you are the service.” What other law firms call a consultation is really a sales pitch. We don’t believe we need to or should “sell” clients on using us. Instead, we believe a client’s case should fit the legal services we provide. Any lawyer who offers a “free” consultation isn’t intending to give you legal advice. What they’re really offering is a meeting to pitch you on signing up for services you might not want, and may even not be in your best interest.
Our approach is to first understand your circumstances determine if we are a fit, and then just give the legal solutions clients need from the very beginning. We’d rather give clients solid legal advice than try to sell them. It makes everyone’s life easier and happier by approaching it this way.
Our new client intake process starts with an initial contact, whether through an email, phone call, or live chat, that involves a fact gathering process by a member of our staff. If after our initial discussion it looks like a fit, we will gather more information and materials from you after which your case will be reviewed by a senior member of our staff with a managing attorney to determine appropriate next steps. The outcome of our internal review will result in a clear decision on what the next steps will be, which may include a business strategy meeting or another clear path to resolve your legal matter.
What happens in a business strategy meeting?
We’ve found that often clients only need very focused and strategic advice on their legal matters, and not the typical full blown legal engagement and big retainer mega law firms often charge.
After years of development with client input, we created our business strategy meeting. The objective of our business strategy meeting is to resolve client issues within one or two strategic legal sessions (and some behind the scenes legal work by us). Our business strategy meetings have been designed to provide clear legal solutions and strategies that quickly and economically resolve matters for clients in transactional and some litigation matters. The process begins with gathering facts, information, and the documents relating to your legal matter. We then analyze and strategize about options and solutions with clients in a one to two meeting setting. The objective is that at the conclusion of the business strategy meeting process, your legal issue will either be completely resolved or you will clearly understand a legal strategy and next steps to move forward. We have designed our business strategy meeting to be adaptable to your needs.
The best part is, the full loop of our business strategy meeting process can often be completed remotely and within a day or two of you contacting us.
To find out more about resolving your legal matter through a business strategy meeting, please contact our firm or call us at 801-980-5300.
How do I get started?
The first step is to contact us. If you’re not quite ready, that’s okay. You can sign up for our newsletter [link], follow us on Facebook [link], or contact us to let us know you’d like more information, but not quite ready. We’re pretty low key, we promise.
Otherwise, we’d love you contact us today at [link], chat live today, or call us at 801-980-5300, to get the process started. You’ll connect with one of our friendly office members. In the course of a 10-15 minute visit, we’ll discuss your legal matter and determine if your case is a potential fit for our firm. After reviewing your legal matter, we can determine the next appropriate steps, which may include a business strategy meeting or other steps.
We’d love to discuss how we can help your business, corporation, or startup succeed.