TL;DR: Apart from early-stage specialized corporate lawyers (startup lawyers), there’s a second kind of lawyer that almost every early startup needs: a commercial/tech transactions lawyer.
Background Reading:
Imagine you run into a doctor who says he can (i) perform heart surgeries, (ii) treat cancer, (iii) treat your asthma, and (iv) provide pregnancy care, on his own, and all at a lower than market cost. Is your first reaction “wow, this guy is an incredibly affordable genius!” ? A cardiologist, oncologist, pulmonologist, and OB/GYN all in one!
Probably not.
One of the first points I make to young tech entrepreneurs about how to source legal counsel is that the statement “I need a lawyer” is almost completely useless without specifying what kind (specialty) of lawyer. The complexity of the legal issues that even young emerging companies deal with is simply too high to entrust all of them to a single “generalist” claiming to be a jack of all trades. This is not a coffee shop, or a bakery. The stakes, and potential liabilities, are much higher.
OK, you might say. I’m a startup, so I need a startup lawyer. Well, that’s an improvement, but what exactly is a “startup lawyer”?
In my experience, the correct definition of a “startup lawyer” is a corporate lawyer with a strong specialization in early-stage emerging companies and venture capital/angel financings. Very different from an M&A Lawyer, or a corporate lawyer who handles middle market or public company work. Startup lawyers typically serve as GC (General Counsel) for early-stage startups, which requires them to have a workable understanding of tax law, securities law, commercial issues, IP, and labor/employment legal issues. They’re not experts in those areas (corporate law is their specialty), but they’ve seen those issues enough to cover the basics, while also knowing when to rope in deeper expertise. Your corporate/startup lawyer should serve as the quarterback of your general legal team.
For most startups we see, probably 50-75% of Pre-Series A legal needs are covered by these startup-specialized corporate lawyers: formation, financing, hiring and firing, equity compensation, etc. Small amounts of patent or trademark work may be needed by appropriate specialists, but that’s a minority of cases pre-Series A. But there’s a second kind of lawyer – who isn’t a “startup lawyer” – that virtually all of our early clients end up needing, and that all founders need to be aware of in sourcing their own counsel: commercial, or sometimes called “tech transactions” lawyers.
Startup/corporate lawyers typically handle the more ‘internal’ issues of a company and its stakeholders: relating to the company’s founders, its employees/service providers, and stockholders. Commercial or Tech Transactions (let’s use C/T) lawyers, in contrast, typically manage legal issues and contracts relating to a company’s customers/users and potential commercial partners. A good 25-50% of pre-Series A legal needs will often get handled by a C/T lawyer. Examples of C/T Lawyer work:
- License Agreements (Inbound and Outbound)
- OEM, Reseller / Distribution Agreements
- Terms of Service and Privacy Policies (which may also require Data/Privacy Lawyers, but usually not)
- EULAs, API / SDK terms
- Technology Transfer Agreements
- Manufacturing / Supply Agreements
The nature of these kinds of agreements is very different from the kind of work a classic “startup lawyer” does, and while most solid corporate lawyers probably could wing a simple version of a tech transactions document, I am deeply skeptical of a lawyer who claims to be able to handle both all of a company’s corporate needs and their commercial/tech transactions needs for a serious amount of time. In the very early days it *may* work, but even with a small level of scale it’ll start to look a lot like the “genius” doctor mentioned above. The most dangerous (and, in the long run, expensive) type of lawyer is the one who doesn’t admit what he/she doesn’t know, but incentives to maximize personal revenue often lead lawyers to exaggerate their abilities.
So, in short: if you’re building a tech startup, you don’t just need “a lawyer.” You need specialists. And a true startup lawyer, even a very good one, is very rarely enough. Ensure you have access to a solid commercial/tech transactions lawyer (reputable startup lawyers work with them). If you don’t, you’ll eventually regret it.