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Don't Be Scared Off From Fighting For Your Rights Due to High Legal Costs

It's a fact of the business world, with both startup and established businesses, that from time to time you're going to encounter legal issues that are scary and potentially expensive. A lot of these situations involve contracts--either you have to sue someone, or someone has sued you, for breach of contract.

When confronted with these situations, you do need a lawyer. Because if the other side has a lawyer, and you try to handle the legal stuff yourself, YOU WILL LOSE. The law is tricky, and procedural rules are tricky, and the side that's "lawyered up" will push around and bully someone who doesn't have a lawyer.

But, too often, when small business owners are faced with legal challenges, they just give up because hiring a lawyer and fighting would be too expensive.

What brought this to mind was that I caught an older episode of Shark Tank from 2012. A Lee Dahlberg came up with an idea for a business--putting carved, polished, rocks on bands that you wear like a bracelet. He called his product ROCK BAND. Dahlberg told the Sharks he had tried to get into some big retailers but ran up against what he called "the politics of retail", so it never happened. Daymond John asked what he meant by that. Dahlberg said that, for instance, he got a purchase order from a retailer for $150,000, and after he got the Rock Bands made to fulfill the order, the retailer nixed the deal.

Daymond John then asked, "Isn't a purchase order a contract though?" Meaning the retailer breached its contract with Dahlberg. Dahlberg answered, "That's what I said...And I was told, kind of, 'sue us'."

Dahlberg never did sue. Presumably, like many other small business owners, he thought it would be too expensive to fight to enforce his valid contract. The retailer knew that, too, which is why they said "sue us". I imagine that retailer says the same thing to a lot of small businesses.

It's for situations like this that my law firm exists. That's why my hourly fee is so low, so small business owners can fight when they need to and not be scared away because legal costs can be expensive. Not with me.
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