Startups and growing businesses

Russell-Cooke has helped numerous startups put their business idea on a sound legal footing. We can provide specialist commercial legal advice for any startup or new business.

When starting or growing a young business keeping control of costs and budgets is critical. We understand that legal costs are often uncertain as many law firms are reluctant to offer a fixed price for legal work.  For this reason many businesses do not obtain formal legal advice at the outset, something which they may later regret. Many problems are more expensive, time-consuming and difficult to deal with later in the life of a business and may even reduce the value of the business.

We offer a package of fixed price specialist advice designed for cost conscious startup and growing businesses including documents and registrations.

Russell-Cooke's legal pack for startup businesses provides you with a flexible package of specialist legal advice, documents and registrations, adapted for your business, at a competitive fixed price.

We will discuss your business plan with you and advise you on the legal requirements of your business on a free, no-obligation basis. If you have a limited budget we can help to prioritise your legal requirements. We will break down your requirements into individual fixed-price deliverables. We will liaise with our specialist employment department for particular employment law deliverables.

You will have the peace of mind of having obtained professional advice while controlling your costs.

Russell-Cooke's startup pack includes:

• an initial no-obligation telephone consultation to discuss the services we can provide to your business and how we are able to assist you
• guidance on the general legal requirements of your business (what you need to do or to get started)
• as many (or as few) of our product deliverables as you need—at a competitive fixed price

The deliverables may include the following:

• company formation
• shareholders or partnership agreements
• terms of business
• employment contracts
• employee handbook
• articles of association/constitution
• trade mark search and application, domain and business name advice
• self-employed consultant contract
• loan agreement
• website terms of use and privacy policy
• security document (debenture or legal charge)

Members of the team frequently train entrepreneurs on the legal aspects of setting up a business.

Terms of business: we frequently assist businesses to develop user-friendly template terms of business and provide staff training on contract formation and contract risks.

Corporate affairs: one area where we can add significant value is to advise on the corporate structure and the terms of shareholders and partnership agreements, allowing any issues which later develop to be dealt with more easily.

Client expertise

We have advised startups to set up businesses in sectors as diverse as hospitality, e-commerce, software, tech, automotive, distribution, recruitment, fast moving consumer goods, property, advertising and marketing, communications and media. To find out more about our startup clients and what brought them to where they are today, check out our Q&A series Origin Stories.
 

Russell-Cooke offers a 30 minute initial consultation (free of charge) in order to discuss the services we can provide to your business. While we will be constructive and helpful on this call, please be aware that we cannot provide legal advice that you can rely on until we have set you up as a client of the firm.

With our startup pack we can provide your new business with as many standard documents and applications as may be required, on a competitive fixed-fee basis allowing you to keep to a fixed budget.