Business and Intellectual Property Law Firm

[ACOlmsted]

Hello everybody-

I run a law firm in Seattle with a focus on business and intellectual property law. The majority of my clients are small business owners. The rates I charge are affordable to startups and those unable to afford the inflated rates of the lawyers found at large law firms.

Much of my practice entails properly structuring businesses to ensure the owners are individually insulated from the liabilities of their business. In addition, I have been able to structure the majority of my client’s businesses in a manner that saves them a substantial amount in IRS taxes, offsetting my rates.

The other major practice area of my firm is intellectual property law, including trademark, copyright and patent law issues. I am often asked to help my clients protect their intellectual property and have helped clients with a wide range of needs, both domestic and international.

[vangogh]

Welcome to the forum Andrew. We get our share of legal questions and I can think of a few threads specifically about intellectual property law. Always good to have someone here who can answer those question.

Looking forward to chatting and thanks for joining the community.

[Steve B]

I wish you practiced in KY - I often have questions about IP.

Welcome to the forum - we hope you stick around.

[ACOlmsted]

Thank you for the warm welcome.

Steve- while my office is located in Seattle and the business law aspect of my practice is limited to WA (due to ethical rules I must follow), I practice IP law internationally and represent IP clients from all over the country. If you ever have an IP question, I'm more than happy to speak with you.

Andrew

[SnellExperts]

Hello everybody-

I run a law firm in Seattle with a focus on business and intellectual property law. The majority of my clients are small business owners. The rates I charge are affordable to startups and those unable to afford the inflated rates of the lawyers found at large law firms.

Much of my practice entails properly structuring businesses to ensure the owners are individually insulated from the liabilities of their business. In addition, I have been able to structure the majority of my client’s businesses in a manner that saves them a substantial amount in IRS taxes, offsetting my rates.

The other major practice area of my firm is intellectual property law, including trademark, copyright and patent law issues. I am often asked to help my clients protect their intellectual property and have helped clients with a wide range of needs, both domestic and international.

You are definitely a person that I should become friends lol. In all seriousness though, I would like to discuss procuring your services in the future, send me an email to my personal account please, or I can message you if you want to just give me your email. Thanks :)

[Business Attorney]

Welcome to our group, Andrew. It's good to have another lawyer here. We have a couple of accountants but I think I have been the only lawyer since the forum launched more than 3 years ago. I look forward to your posts.

[vangogh]

David I think you have been the only lawyer here. I'm sure you'll be happy to have company and not be the only one who's able to answer some of the legal questions we get.

Andrew we do get our share of IP questions so be ready. :)

[ACOlmsted]

It seems that way. I'll do my best to answer where I can.

[KristineS]

Welcome to the forum. As you can see, we have people here with questions.

[cbscreative]

Welcome aboard, Andrew. Your knowledge will be very valuable here.

@Snell, I removed the email from your post because harvesting bots will sweep through and your inbox will get loaded with spam. If you and Andrew have not emailed each other yet, I suggest using the PM here.

[broudie]

I'm pretty ignorant about these things. How can you be differentiated from discounted-business-legal services such as the lawyers that are on Legalzoom or Rocket Lawyer?

[vangogh]

How can you be differentiated from discounted-business-legal services

By not being a discounted-business-legal service. You think about businesses like Legalzoom and Rocket Lawyer offer and what they don't. You do what you can to understand who their customers are and who their customers aren't. For those people who aren't their customers think about why. What don't Legalzoom and Rocket Lawyer offer? Assuming enough people would prefer what they aren't offering, do that and you're now serving a market Legalzoom and Rocket Lawyer don't and you've differentiated your business from their businesses

[Gabe]

Hey Andrew and welcome to the forum. Your expertise will be extremely valuable to the community here, hopefully we can give back even more. Good to have you.

[broudie]

By not being a discounted-business-legal service. You think about businesses like Legalzoom and Rocket Lawyer offer and what they don't. You do what you can to understand who their customers are and who their customers aren't. For those people who aren't their customers think about why. What don't Legalzoom and Rocket Lawyer offer? Assuming enough people would prefer what they aren't offering, do that and you're now serving a market Legalzoom and Rocket Lawyer don't and you've differentiated your business from their businesses

That really didn't answer my question. You basically answered "they are different because they are different"

[vangogh]

I'm not sure what you're asking then. To be differentiated means being different. You look at what the one business is doing and find some way to be different in order to stand out. The idea is not to be the exact same thing as that other business. Legalzoom and Rocket Lawyer appeal to people mainly because of their price. If you want to differentiate your business the obvious way is don't compete with them on price. If all you do is provide similar legal documents at a similar price then you haven't differentiated your business.

I can't offer specifics for how you might do things differently from Legalzoom and Rocket Lawyer, because I don't know the industry well enough or either company well enough. I just looked at Legalzoom and they say 9 out of 10 customers would recommend them. To figure out how to differentiate a similar business I might look to that one person who wouldn't recommend them and find out why. There's probably something Legalzoom doesn't do that leaves 10% of it's customers unsatisfied. Find out what that is and do it.

Big picture though, all differentiate your business means is to be different in some way than the competition. The specifics depend on the the industry, what your business can and can't do well, what the competition does, etc. The general idea is what I said above. Figure out who isn't satisfied with your competition. Figure out why they aren't satisfied. Then do something in your business to satisfy them.

[vangogh]

The following isn't from me, but rather David (Business Attorney (http://www.small-business-forum.net/members/business-attorney.html)). He tried posting, but ran into a glitch and now the software won't let him post in this thread. His response is good and deserves better than being stuck inside a weird forum glitch. Here it is.

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Broudie, are you just asking what a client gets from going to an experienced IP attorney rather than an online legal services group? Expertise and personal attention. What you essentially get with those discount services is a little knowledge and a little hand-holding. For someone who just wants to file a trademark (which you can do yourself at uspto.gov for only the $275 fee), then those services take some of the effort and uncertainty out of the process.

If you want an evaluation of your trademark and an explanation of what effect other rights in existence may have on your mark, if you want some expert analysis of what classes of goods and services you should consider, or if you want some professional evaluation of your description of goods and services, you probably won't get that from a discounted service. If you want the same person who talked to you today to be available to talk to you 6 months from now or 5 years from now (when your first renewal comes due), you won't get that.

Can you imagine IBM, Apple or Microsoft trusting their intellectual property protection to a discount service?

There is nothing wrong with the discounted services if you use them in the right way and on the right projects. Think of it in terms of doctors. If you have a small mole you want to have removed from your shoulder, you may not care much who does it. You may be willing to go to an inexpensive clinic and have it cut out without thinking too much about the qualification of the doctor. A second year intern might do the procedure and you don't care. If you are Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Aniston and hit the red carpet in backless dresses, you may want a top plastic surgeon who would leave only the smallest scar. If the mole was a quarter inch from your eye, even you might be more selective in choosing a doctor. Or if you thought the mole was pre-cancerous you might want to make sure that the doctor could monitor your condition based on experience instead of another doctor's chart.

There are many reasons why someone might choose to use discounted legal services, but in almost every case they are choosing to trade off expertise and a professional relationship to save money. As long as they understand that, and they decide that the money saved is more important under their circumstances than what they are giving up, then using the online services makes sense.