Owning your own business in the District of Columbia offers both financial and personal benefits. However, if you are in a business partnership that is now looking at splitting up, engaged in an accounting dispute, looking to hire an employee from a foreign country, or a myriad of other issues, owning a business can be extremely stressful. In either of the scenarios, receiving sound legal counsel from a knowledgeable DC business lawyer is extremely important.

With more than 20 years of complex legal, accounting, and tax experience, Antonoplos & Associates DC business lawyers have the knowledge and expertise required to help you quickly resolve any legal business issues you may encounter. Because our firm has helped large and small businesses in almost every type of DC business litigation, we are prepared to help you through any legal issues fast, efficiently, and in a cost-effective manner. Our business attorneys commonly assist clients with the following business practice areas: business formation, employment law, immigration law, sales of consumer goods, contract drafting and negotiations, antitrust, intellectual property, taxes, and bankruptcy.

Business Formation

There is a wide range of business entities you can choose from when forming a business. Our experienced DC business lawyers can help you in the creation of any of the following:

• C corporations
• S corporations
• Professional corporations (PC)
• Limited liability companies (LLC)
• Limited liability partnerships (LLP)
• Partnerships
• Limited partnerships (LP)
• Family limited partnerships (FLP)
• Joint ventures
• Merger and acquisitions
• Business succession
• Sole proprietorships

The business entity you choose impacts every aspect of business operation from the payment of taxes and the ability to obtain capital to personal liability protection and the ability to take the company public. If you do not understand the various pros and cons of each business entity, you could form a business that results in costly, time-consuming legal problems in the future.

Employment Law

For any business that has at least one employee, it is critical to stay on top of current employment law. Employment law encompasses many issues. However, the most common issues include whether you have to offer your employee’s health insurance and workers’ compensation. Additionally, you will need to consider whether you are following anti-discrimination laws and sexual harassment. If your company does not have knowledgeable legal representation, you could face significant financial liability, loss of reputation with your customers, and difficulty finding new quality employees.

Immigration Law

With businesses competing in a global marketplace, immigration law continues to become a larger part of business law. In most cases, companies will look to hire full-time, part-time, or event-specific employees that have specific skills not found in the home companies’ region. However, you need to be sure that you are following the correct tax structure and other immigration laws to ensure that an employee can focus on their job and help you for as long as you need.  

Sales of Consumer Goods

When dealing with selling products to consumers, every company operating within the United States must follow the Uniform Commercial Code. The Uniform Commercial Code focuses on every commercial action from contracts to leases to cracking down on fraud and creating secure transactions. Because of all the information within this code, legal help is necessary. Furthermore, you cannot hire a general business lawyer, you must hire a lawyer with specific knowledge of this code to ensure that you are following the proper legal guidelines. Furthermore, applying the rules in actual business situations is even more difficult and requires much more skill.

Contract Drafting and Negotiations

Unless your business has someone with extensive knowledge of legal language, your company will also benefit from a lawyer that can create customized business contacts and agreements. This is extremely important as certain parties will try to take advantage of your business by inserting clauses that are not in the best interest of your business. Furthermore, the forms you find online are not tailored to your company and often do not contain the terms, conditions, and restrictions required for a valid contract or agreement.

Antitrust

Antitrust laws work to ensure that different businesses within a specific marketplace operate on a fair playing field. The way antitrust laws attempt to achieve this goal is to ensure that companies do not use deceptive or unfair practices in order to capture a larger market share. A business lawyer that has experience with antitrust laws will be able to help your business avoid costly litigation by operating ethically while at the same time bring unfair practices that your competitors use to light.

Intellectual Property

To run a profitable and protected business, businesses need to protect the merchandise or work that makes them unique. Thus, securing intellectual property rights for your products through patents, trademarks, and copyrights should be your first order of business. The most straightforward manner of securing these rights is by possessing or applying for possession of a registered trademark through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Though there are existing systems to secure your intellectual property, it is important to hire a lawyer to ensure that you can secure intellectual property and that you create the best case to receive these protections.

Taxes

There are many different types of taxes that businesses pay. However, the most common taxes that businesses need to be aware of are Income taxes, sales tax, property tax, self-employment tax, employment and payroll tax, dividend taxes, and excise taxes.

• Incomes taxes come from the profits of a company. Furthermore, these taxes can be paid as personal income taxes for sole proprietorships, single-person LLCs, or through a partnership business tax return.
• Sales taxes are different in every state and refer to taxes paid on merchandise and services sold.
• Property taxes come from any real estate your business owners. Furthermore, if you sell business property, you may have to pay capital gains on this property.
• Self-employment taxes ensure that if you run your own business, you will still pay into Social Security and Medicare.
• Employment and payroll taxes come from employees’ paychecks for FICA taxes for Social Security and Medicare.
• Dividend taxes come from corporate shareholders and comes from profits from the business.
• Finally, excise taxes apply to certain products that businesses use like oil or gas.   

Furthermore, Peter Antonoplos, founder and managing partner of Antonoplos & Associates has an LLM in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center. With this knowledge, Peter can help you maximize tax benefits in DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy, while an unfortunate occurrence, can help businesses out of a bad situation. However, this process is especially complicated as there are multiple options with different requirements and filings for each option. Thus, a knowledgeable business lawyer is vital to find the best bankruptcy solution and see this option through.

Business Litigation

Our team of experienced attorneys is ideally suited to handle the most complex business litigation issues, including:

• Breach of contract
• Breach of fiduciary duty
• Misappropriation of funds
• Trademark infringement
• Divorce valuation issues
• Partnership splits
• Misappropriation of trade secrets
• Violation of confidentiality
• Misappropriation of funds
• Violation of noncompete clauses

With our comprehensive knowledge of business litigation coupled with our highly trained support staff, we can cover the entirety of your claims and put you in the best position to win your lawsuit.

Final Thoughts

Business law is complex. This is so no matter the type of business you run and what type of legal issues you encounter. As such, it is extremely important to have legal representation that can help you establish your business and deal with any legal issues that occur after this point. The Antonoplos & Associates DC business lawyers have over 20 years of experience helping clients in DC, Maryland, and Virginia with business law. With this knowledge and experience, we can help with any legal issues that occur from owning your own business.

Contact our Law Office for More Information

For more information on our group of DC business lawyers, contact Antonoplos & Associates at 202-803-5676. You can also directly schedule a consultation with one of our attorneys. Additionally, for general information regarding business law, check out our blog.