General Counsel For Your Needs [NEW!]. Need a general counsel to organize legal matters, attend meetings and be your sounding board, but don’t have the funds to hire a C-level executive or pay normal law firm hourly billing rates? As in-house corporate counsel for both a publicly traded regulated financial institution and a biotechnology and pharmaceutical services provider, Andrew Baer has years of experience in overseeing contracting and litigation, developing and implementing corporate policies and procedures, handling regulatory compliance matters, developing smart strategies to protect and grow intellectual property assets, managing outside counsel, partnering with senior management on strategic and operational initiatives, and identifying and counseling on risk factors. Special flexible billing arrangements available to suit your needs.
Business Formation. Whether to form an entity, what type of entity (LLC, LLP, S corp., or C corp.), and in which state to organize are critical decisions for a startup business, impacting its tax treatment, governance structure and ability to attract investors, as well as the liability of its principals. Getting solid legal advice and assistance from before birth will help you chart a course for future growth.
Business Counseling. A growing business has many different questions and needs, and it requires a business lawyer who can do more than simply fill in forms or warn about risks, but will be a trusted partner in nurturing the business. A business lawyer must understand his or her client’s business and goals and responsibly promote them. Baer Business Law can be your sounding board if you have an idea you want to test out or something about your business is keeping you awake at night.
Contracts. Contracts are more than pieces of paper that secure your rights when you go to court. A good contract will keep you out of court and your business relationship running smoothly by managing the parties’ expectations and resolving difficult issues at the front end. Baer Business Law provides affordable and experienced contract preparation, review and negotiation, including:
● business continuity
● confidentiality
● corporate
● consulting
● distribution and supply
● employment, non-compete and invention assignment
● facilities
● investment and stock purchase
● leases
● letters of intent, term sheets and memoranda of understanding
● licensing and technology acquisition/transfer
● management and agency
● marketing, joint venture and strategic partnership
● merger and acquisition
● model releases and publicity rights
● shareholders and LLC
● vendor
Whether you want us to close a big deal or just eyeball a contract for key issues, we will protect your rights without getting in the way. We also provide counseling and assistance in contract disputes.
Corporate Law. In a time of increasing regulation and public skepticism of business, corporate missteps can be costly. From shareholder agreements to options to board resolutions, as your business grows, it will need solid legal assistance on a variety of governance and capitalization issues. Baer Business Law wants to be there every step of the way.
Copyrights. Are you the creative type? Whether you are a multimedia developer or a songwriter, a television network or a mural artist, you want to protect your rights in your own work and make sure that you have the proper use rights in others’ work that you need to operate and build your business. Copyrighted materials can be important monetizable business assets, while unauthorized use of others’ copyrights — even innocent use — can lead to expensive litigation. Whether you need copyright registration, licensing of broadcast, publication, performance, distribution or other rights in content, or counseling on digital rights management, fair use or the First Amendment, Baer Business Law will help you develop and advance a copyright strategy in a digital age without boundaries.
Trademarks. Developing and marketing your own brand lets the world know who you are and can be vital to propelling your business on a path toward rapid growth. A trademark attorney must be able to do more than simply file a trademark application (anyone can do that!). Baer Business Law will advise you on how to pick trademarks, not only to avoid infringing others’ rights, but also with an eye toward building a strong brand, maximizing the scope of your trademark and getting a registration from the Trademark Office as quickly as possible. We will also handle any office actions in the Trademark Office and help you understand your rights if third parties are infringing your name or brand. In addition, as trademark counsel for both web startups and large publicly traded companies, Andrew Baer has over a decade of experience in protecting trademark rights on the Internet, including handling domain name dispute proceedings under ICANN’s dispute resolution policy and counseling on emerging trademark issues like the use of trademarks as search terms.
Technology Law and Technology Acquisition/Transfer. Baer Business Law embraces the excitement of new technologies and will guide you through the legal challenges they create. As intellectual property and technology counsel, Andrew Baer has represented clients in a wide range of industries, including biotechnology, pharmaceutical services, financial services, information technology, heavy equipment manufacturing, education and entertainment, in technology licensing, development, marketing, distribution, sale and services transactions. He has helped clients strategize and negotiate complex intellectual property ownership and usage issues in licensing new biotechnology compounds and processes, overseen intellectual property and technology due diligence, usage and transfer for large M&A and offshoring transactions, and negotiated business continuity, ASP, hosting, software-as-a-service (SaaS), software licensing, source code escrow, support and maintenance, and web development contracts for information technology vendors and users. Baer Business Law also offers counseling and assistance on PCI DSS compliance, information security and database breach issues.
New Media Law. In a time of 3G, Twitter and wikis, a business lawyer must understand the possibilities of evolving online media in clients’ businesses and dwell on the legal cutting edge. We offer a full suite of new media law services, including contracting (affiliate marketing, hosting, web development, co-branding, clickwrap/browsewrap and online terms of use), privacy policies, computer/Internet use, blogging and social media policies, website review, and reliable counseling and assistance on intellectual property issues, publicity rights, defamation and liability for third-party content, trade secrets, website trespass, domain name disputes, and online advertising and promotions.
Privacy and Information Security. With PCI DSS compliance being expanded to millions of small and medium-sized businesses and states like Nevada and Massachusetts mandating the use of encryption to protect personal information, information security has risen to the top of the compliance checklist. At the same the federal government is moving to regulate privacy in online behavioral advertising, with the potential to transform how business is conducted on the Internet. Widespread employee use of social media like Facebook and Twitter has confronted businesses with difficult decisions about how to balance legal, financial and reputational risk with employee privacy. A business lawyer must understand not merely the law, but the technologies and platforms driving changes in the law. Andrew Baer speaks and publishes widely on cutting-edge privacy and information security issues, including PCI DSS compliance, encryption, corporate Internet/computer use, blogging and social media policies, online behavioral advertising, workplace privacy, and the latest developments in federal and state information security regulation. As a former in-house counsel overseeing technology and information security for a bank, including the creation of its data breach incident response program, he knows these issues from the inside out. From cookies to Gramm-Leach-Bliley to HIPAA, Baer Business Law will guide your business through the waters of baffling change.
Legal Risk Management Consulting. Any business faces a host of legal risks, known and unknown, such as litigation risk, regulatory compliance risk, intellectual property risk and information security risk. A business lawyer must serve as a trusted advisor, identifying and evaluating risks and developing innovative strategies to manage them while avoiding scare tactics that interfere with the client’s business objectives. Baer Business Law wants to take a look at your business and help you understand where the areas of exposure are and what you can do to cover yourself. We seek to inform our clients so that they can make the best possible decisions for their businesses, while keeping legal bills (ours included!) low.