Have you ever watched the TV show Disaster DIY on HGTV? The premise of the show is that many people have no idea what they are doing when it comes to home remodeling, but they try the “do it yourself” (DIY) approach anyway. The host of the show then comes in to save the day, repairing what the DIYers have messed up, and teaching them how to do perform certain tasks.
This show has many parallels to the world of business law. It is tempting to try and find a DIY solution to legal issues. Budgets are tight, and professional legal advice can seem like a luxury when you are first starting out or struggling to meet quarterly goals, so many businesses adopt a DIY solution when what they really need is a good lawyer.
The Internet also encourages many businesses to DIY their legal issues, whether its access to legal info or various forms. But the problem is that advice on the Internet is not always accurate, particularly since business law is different in every state.
After pursuing the DIY route and disaster ensues, business owners are forced to call in the professionals to clean up the mess. Unlike the TV show, where the show’s producers cover the DIYers costs, the costs of fixing a legal DIY disaster rest solely on the business or the business owner. It often costs businesses significantly more to rework a legal framework that wasn’t carefully thought through. There are two reasons for this. First, proactive legal help is always going to be more cost effective than legal triage; it’s infinitely more costly to actively fight a pending lawsuit than it does to carefully draft and implement needed policies. Second, the results that even the best attorney can salvage from an awful situation are not likely to be as as ideal or as cheap as it would have been to avoid the disaster altogether.