Startups & Founder Advising
Founders often need legal help at a small number of predictable points: choosing and governing the entity, documenting founder ownership, securing intellectual-property rights from contributors, hiring the first employees or contractors, and preparing contracts for customers and partners.
The firm organizes that work in stages. The immediate foundation is completed first, followed by the commercial and operational documents the company needs as it begins to hire, sell, raise capital, or negotiate with larger counterparties. For ongoing clients, this work may develop into a standing outside general counsel relationship.
Founder ownership, intellectual-property assignment, and initial governance should be documented early. Financing, hiring, and commercial-contract needs can then be added as the business develops.
Services
- Formation and founder equity architecture
- Founder agreements, vesting, and IP assignment
- Contractor, advisor, and early employment documentation
- Commercial policies and the initial contract stack (NDA, MSA, terms)
- Commercialization and customer-contracting strategy
- Growth-stage legal infrastructure audits
Representative Experience
Outside general counsel to AI and technology startups, building legal and commercial contracting infrastructure from founder documentation through enterprise customer agreements.
Counsel to technology-enabled education and platform companies in formation and commercialization, including multi-entity structure, founder governance, equity structuring, and brand licensing.
Representative matters. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Process
Foundation review
What exists, what’s missing, what will break at scale.
Infrastructure sprint
The core document set, delivered as a package.
Commercial readiness
The contract stack and negotiation posture for real customers.
FAQs
We can’t afford big-firm startup counsel. What’s the model here?
Scoped packages for foundation work and predictable arrangements for ongoing counsel — boutique economics, institutional documents.
Do we need all of this before revenue?
You need IP assignment and founder terms before anything else — those are nearly impossible to fix cheaply later. The rest phases in.
Our IP is the company. How do you protect it?
Ownership by assignment from every contributor, licensing structured deliberately, and confidentiality that actually binds. See SaaS, IP & Technology Transactions.