Really useful legal links for startups and entrepreneurs

Here are some links to legal resources which all startup businesses and SMEs should be aware of. Whilst this article focuses on resources in the UK, England and Wales, businesses outside of those territories may find the resources helpful too.
 

Intellectual Property Office (IPO) website

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/intellectual-property-office

First up, as you will have seen referenced in our intellectual property explainer, is the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) website. On this website, you can learn about intellectual property types, register patents and trademarks and also search for trademarks. As you will see from our upcoming article on the subject of trademarks, doing a search for existing registered trademarks should be a vital part of your new product or new business development process. Nothing is more disheartening than thinking up a great name – Green Cow - for your new energy-drink product only to find that Red Bull had registered the name years ago and already have a product on the shelves – it could be worse though - it would be much worse if you had actually launched the product and found yourself on the wrong end of an expensive trademark infringement court case.

Companies House

http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk//wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo

Speaking of naming things, the Companies House Webcheck feature enables you to search the details of (and apply for documents on) any company registered within England and Wales. You can also register a company for yourself on the site for a fee. For clarity, Companies House is the governmental body that maintains a register of all Companies that have been created in England and Wales.

Bailii - British and Irish Legal Information Institute

http://www.bailii.org/form/search_cases.html

Perhaps not for the faint hearted, Bailii is a fantastic resource in respect finding of case law in the UK, Ireland and the EU. It has written reports of cases from England and Wales, Northern Ireland , the EU, Scotland and Ireland.  If you want to research the legal position in respect of a certain area of law, perhaps to clarify how disputes have been decided in the past, Balii is a great tool to aid understanding. You can search by case reference or keywords so it is very easy to dig through all of the cases.

Making sense of those cases however is something that is perhaps best left to experienced lawyers, but as the resource is a public one, there is nothing to stop the adventurous non-lawyer from giving it a go, particularly when some of the results can be gently amusing.

For example, if you use the words, "degree," "dog," and "lulu," for a search in the "all of these words" box on the Bailii website, you will come across the case of BSkyB Limited v HP Enterprise Services UK Limited which, for the most part, is a serious case about a dispute between two huge and recognisable companies over a failed software implementation. However, the case also provided an amusing Ally McBeal moment, when the prosecuting lawyer, Mark Howard QC,  showed that the main defence witness had a fake degree from a fake college on the US Virgin Island of St John - the lawyer applied for, and got, a degree from the same college for his dog, Lulu. Apparently, the dog got better marks than the witness. If that isn't cringe-worthy enough for you, the witness had also completely fabricated details about: the college and the course itself; working for Coca Cola on the Island; and the types of plane that flew onto the island - all of which he confirmed in open court  - the problem being that there was no airport on the island, and never had been, Coca Cola did not have an office on the island, and had never had one, and the college had never existed at all.

The rampage of potential perjury by the witness on the stand did not even stop there, as recalled by the judge:

"He said that he could provide "the graduate materials that I worked on, the work books, the books, that sort of thing. I am happy to pass those along to you." He said that would be "somewhere between five and ten textbooks", which were "books that are associated with the class". When he did provide a book EDS' solicitors said that Joe Galloway "recalls having this for some time but cannot recall whether he used this as part of any of his studies". That book was "The Customer Connection" by John Guaspari and bore a barcode, stickers and pencil markings which linked it with the library of the St Charles, Missouri campus of Sanford-Brown College near his current home in St Louis, Missouri and evidently was a recent acquisition."

Awkward.

UK Government website

https://www.gov.uk/browse/business

After the amusing highs of a UK caselaw repository, the business pages on the UK Government website are a bit of a come-down. Nevertheless, they are packed full of useful information and tools to help any budding startup company, from tax calculators to advice on how to write a business plan. In respect of legal topics, the website contains really helpful information relating to regulations which might affect your business, such as: sale of goods; data protection; health and safety; labelling; and food safety, amongst others. Well worth a visit.

The Law Society site

http://solicitors.lawsociety.org.uk/
 
This link takes you to the Law Society's 'find a solicitor' web page. On this page you can find out the details of every solicitor regulated by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (the independent body which regulates solicitors in England and Wales) . The search feature is very useful for finding a solicitor in your locality or for checking that someone who claims to be a solicitor is actually a solicitor (it is a criminal offence in England and wales to claim to be a solicitor if you are not one). If you know of someone who is claiming to be a solicitor and who is not one, or if you have a complaint about a solicitor, you can report the same on the SRA webpage, which is here - http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/consumers.page

Bear in mind that when you seek legal advice for your comapny you do not only have to use a solicitor, there are many types of lawyers available – it depends upon what help you need. Take a look at our explainer article for some guidance.

We hope that you found the above links helpful.
 
Feel free to contact us if you have a need for temporary, part time or interim legal support.
 
Cheers
 
HPLpro team