Every year, many Wisconsin lawyers who work for small firms or practice law solo attend a conference sponsored by the State Bar of Wisconsin which facilitates gatherings, lectures, and conversations about relevant topics and issues. I was excited to be able to attend this year’s Wisconsin Solo and Small Firm Conference to gain insight into … Read more
When advising clients on forming new companies, the question comes up about where to form the company. Should the client form the company in the state where their business is located (Wisconsin most of the time), or somewhere else? When the client elects for “somewhere else,” their entity is considered a “foreign entity.” This means … Read more
Welcome to 2022: everyone is busier than ever, asked to read more emails, messages, memos, articles, books— and yes, blog posts (even this one!)— than ever before. Who has time to read all that? According to the new book Smart Brevity, from the co-creators of Axios News, the answer is that almost nobody is actually … Read more
For creative people, copyright is a powerful concept. US law gives authors of fixed works with some element of creativity rights over their own creations, be they literary works, works of visual art, etc. This right allows the authors of these works to decide who is allowed to copy their work, and how, amongst … Read more
Let’s say you just started a new business—congratulations! When you contribute to your new business at the outset, as well as when you contribute again at a later point, that capital contribution and those of the other owners need to be tracked somehow. Enter the Capital Account. A Capital Account is a general ledger used … Read more
Who has time to read those pesky terms and conditions anyway? As it turns out…they are worth paying attention to, particularly if you are in a position to be writing them or using them on a website. If you are a new business owner starting up a website, terms and conditions should matter to you. … Read more
Welcome back to our discussion on 501(c)(3)’s, inurement, and excess benefit transactions! If you missed the last post that provided an overview of the rules related to this topic, you can find the link to the previous post here. Now that the overview is out of the way, here are some ideas on how to … Read more
I’ve gotten this question in various forms from about 10 clients in the last month – so, as it is at OGS, we write a blog post about it. This is the way. If you’re raising money from outside investors at your company, there are tons of things to think about, so please do not … Read more
It is the end of the year, which means many of you are setting goals for 2022. Good for you! But it is also the time to make sure that your internal realities align with those goals. Goal setting is fabulous. Creating new action steps is fun and while reviewing what you have may not … Read more
I am a self-professed #TrademarkNerd. I think they are interesting beasts. They combine business, law, social science, and, of course, shopping. When a lot of people think about trademarks, they think about what the company owns and does with it. That’s fair. Companies spend a lot of time, money, and effort on their trademarks. But … Read more