Law firm or in-house lawyer? What are the advantages of legal outsourcing?

We many times have seen a situation when a Client who has a lawyer on his/her staff contacted us for business advice or legal support of the business.

A lot of people wonder what is better: to entrust an in-house lawyer with all the questions or to look for assistance of lawyers from law firms of various kinds.

We will discuss these issues through cases from our practice.

The essence of the case: you need both a corporate lawyer and a licensing specialist

In October 2019, the Client - a large company engaged in the production of household chemicals, turned to us. It was going to expand the scope of its activities, and for this it needed to use more types of chemicals.

Therefore, the management of this company had a question: would such activity fall under licensing, and if so, how to prepare for obtainment of a license?

It should be noted that this company had a full-time lawyer on its staff. But as he himself admitted, he had never dealt with licensing, and there was no time to deal with it. And for us - a law firm, for which the support of obtaining a license for the treatment of precursors is one of the core areas - this is a common thing.

Our actions: our lawyers were able to promptly provide legal advice on the process of obtaining a license for precursors and conduct the procedure for obtaining a license in the optimum time.

This was far from a single case when companies of various "caliber" - both small and large businesses - come to us if they need to resolve a legal issue that they have not encountered before.

Related article: Our law firm acts as a legal advisor for a foreign company's rep. office for more than 5 years

The essence of the second case: problems in the process of changing the composition of participants

A Client, a company that wanted to change the membership of the enterprise, turned to us for help.

The company had a full-time lawyer who first drew up the share transfer-acceptance certificate and other documents required by law. However, they were simply not accepted at the administrative services center. Then he decided not to drag out time, he found us and asked for help.

The reason for his unsuccessful submission was that the act of transfer and acceptance of the share did not contain a link, on the basis of which someone transfers the share to someone else. Such a basis is usually a share purchase agreement.

By the way, the contract itself was signed, but the lawyer did not know that this should have been indicated in the act. This is not surprising, because neither the established form, nor the form of the act of acceptance had been approved. And that means - it can be executed in any form.

However, in practice, “an optional form” is the most dangerous form, because the content of such a document can raise questions of government officials and not only them.

Our actions: we prepared for the Client drafts of all the necessary documents and provided legal support during their signing and notarization. As a result, our lawyers helped change the composition of the company’s membership.

The case of the act of acceptance of the share was the beginning of further cooperation of this Client with our company.

Why should a business contact a law firm?

In the course of business activities, the most diverse issues periodically arise, including the passage of scheduled and unscheduled inspections. Unfortunately, full-time lawyers compare poorly with the lawyers of law firms in terms of their competence due to the following factors:

• the daily work of full-time lawyers is most often associated with contracts, less often with participation in litigations. If a company has faced a non-standard issue or situation, a full-time lawyer has encountered this, as a rule, for the first time;
• Law firm specialists are divided into profiles and each one constantly works in their area of expertise. When the Client turns to a law firm, he/she an appropriate specialist who has experience and competence precisely on the issue on which they turned, is assigned to them.

We hope that your business will operate smoothly and without unwanted surprises. But in case of questions, our company will always provide you with legal advice and is open for cooperation.

For legal advice on your business - give us a call!