Starting a business can be overwhelming. We know. We’ve seen it countless times over the years. If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you likely have innumerable questions churning through your mind, especially if you’ve never started a business before. You don’t have to try to answer those questions alone (in fact, you shouldn’t try to answer those questions alone). A knowledgeable attorney can help you through the process and support you in forming a business with a solid foundation for growth, protection, and unrivaled opportunities.
A buy-sell agreement outlines what happens to ownership interests in a business when one of its owners passes away and ensures the remaining owners have a clear plan in place to buy out the deceased owner’s share of the business.
If you are looking to rent space in a building or property for your business, you should start by looking for the appropriate location for your specific use. The business use category will also affect the language and conditions of the lease and certain requirements for approval of the use. A restaurant or retail lease will certainly address different issues than would be included within an office lease or medical lease and different regulatory issues than industrial, manufacturing or other types of leases. All commercial leases should have a general framework that is similar, to include such provisions as: (i) defining the premises to be leased, (ii) the length of the lease term, (iii) renewal options, (iv) apportioning responsibility between the parties for repair and maintenance and who pays the costs for the same, (v) assignment and sublease rights, (vi) insurance requirements, (vii) default provisions and remedies available to the landlord, and (viii) other standard lease clauses. However, as uses change between lease types, more specific language may be included to address such differences. The following are some lease issues to consider for the types of commercial lease scenarios, although some issues will overlap between the different uses and leases.
The end-of-year giving cycle can make or break the revenue projections for nonprofits which rely on donor gifts to support valuable programming and staffing. Given a tumultuous and unpredictable year, which has disrupted office routines and sometimes re-focused efforts to “critical” work, it is even more important that your organization comply with state charitable giving laws as well as craft a compelling message.
COVID-19 is affecting every part of our lives in some way or another. Protecting the brand that you created should not be overlooked. To be competitive and recognizable in the market place, you have no doubt expended resources to build your brand and its related goodwill. Whether by common law or through federal registration, trademark law is a powerful tool that you can use to protect your brand, logo, or name from being used by someone else with the same or similar goods or services to promote their business.
The sudden onset of COVID-19 has led every branch of State and Local governments scrambling to impose appropriate regulations and policies aimed at balancing public safety and avoiding a massive backlog. Each local planning and zoning authority, board of appeals, and permitting department already has a unique set of local rules for conducting business, but new emergency orders can dramatically change an agency’s review and approval process works in 2020 and has also led to a whole new meaning of “business as usual” that continues to evolve.
Final decisions made by the Montgomery County Planning Board of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission can be appealed within a specific statutory timeframe to the Circuit Court for Montgomery County.
