Legal Literacy Winners!
I gosh darn wish inBubbleGuy had this book during the incubation period of inBubbleWrap. You see, the lawyer folk said we could run with the idea but had to limit the drawings to the U.S., excluding Hawaii, Alaska, and Arkansas. The inBubbleTeam just saw this as an obstacle that might result in nasty cease and desist letters if we did not abide. But dag nabbit, iBGuy could have used this to his advantage. He could have started inBubbleHawaii, giving away things like books printed on surf boards. Or inBubbleAlaska, offering fresh Alaskan Cod or......I don't know....sunlight maybe. Or how about inBubbleArkansas.....um....um....does anybody know anything about Arkansas?
Anyway, instead of viewing the law as an obstacle, inBubbleGuy should have tried to leverage the law to work in his favor. That's what Hanna Hasl-Kelchner teaches us how to do in The Business Guide to Legal Literacy.
The author takes an in depth look at a number of examples, showing how if business professionals "had adopted the law as a tool for achieving business objectives rather than defining it as an obstacle to be avoided, the majority of their legal problems and business failures could easily have been eliminated or reduced."
Hanna offers some very good examples of business that failed to leverage the law, such as the textile manufacturer that developed this wonderfully comfortable synthetic fleece (which iBGuy might or might not wear every cold winter morning as he types up these shticks), obtained trademark protection for the brand name, but didn't seek patent protection for the manufacturing process. They could have made millions, but instead, went bankrupt because the competition became to severe.
One of my favorite analogies in The Business Guide to Legal Literacy is when Ms. Hasl-Kelchner talks about how she recognizes that the manager and the lawyer stem from different pedagogy and paradigms. She writes, "The manager is taught to embrace risk, the lawyer to banish it. One is the curious puppy looking to jump on the next deal, the other is the curious cat looking to toy with it. Without some mechanism for rationalizing the two temperaments, putting them together in the same room could make the fur fly."
Both the lawyer and the manager need to start with what they understand and slowly meet in the middle. It's not about eliminating risk (like when I crudely used Courtney Love in copy....what was I thinking), it's about making calculated risks, smart risks, managed risks. The law can be your buddy, your companionisto, your chum, and maybe, just maybe, the one thing that gives you a step up on the competition.
I know a ton of you readers are either going to be, or already are, entrepreneurs or self-employed. Don't let the law be your downfall. Let Hanna Hasl-Kelchner give you practical and real-world (not theory) advice on how to leverage the law to, at bare minimum, avoid downfalls, but at best, take your business to the next level.
Hey Arkansas! Are you there? I hope so, because I'm coming to get you. Actually, you're coming to get what I'm giving away. Maybe some Nolan Richardson bobble-head dolls or something.
Read a nice excerpt and check out the table of contents here.
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