For many of us the only times we really think about the law and the legal system is when someone breaks the law, and it comes across our news feed. While flashy headlines tend to grab our attention, having a basic understanding of the law and how laws impact our business can keep us from making a mistake that costs us time and money and which can lead to fines, having to fight a legal case through the courts, or even spending time in jail. It is worth our time and effort to have a basic understanding of the legal matters that might affect our business.
Learning About Laws
There are many ways we can learn about the laws that we live under. We can focus on seeing the law in action by following court battles. We can choose to attend meetings of our local, state, or national government and watch which laws are being debated, and how those laws will impact us. We can even recognize the need for a new law or a change in law and get our local officials to pass it for us.
We can also choose to look at the law in a more academic setting. We can choose to try to become experts ourselves or, instead, find a recent graduate of a law school in San Francisco, Austin, or even New York who is willing to work with a growing business on a budget to help us understand the legal repercussions of what we do. Often an attorney comes in handy no matter what business or organization we run. This person can help us understand copyright law if we are in a creative field and understand tax laws as our business grows.
We can also spend time talking to a lawyer before we make any major life changes. Having a background understanding of the law can help prevent us from making legal mistakes that can cost us time and energy and in the worst case could even land us in jail. A lawyer can help us navigate the legal system and give us the confidence we are doing everything we can to follow the laws.
Businesses and Navigate The Legal System
If we are a small business owner, we may work with a lawyer on a case-by-case basis depending on the situation. There is a wide range of business attorneys who specialize in diverse fields such as healthcare fraud, bankruptcy, and consumer protection. Using a freelance lawyer can help us keep costs down.
If we are a large business owner, we may have an entire legal team working to make sure we obey all laws and are able to respond if employees or customers have legal complaints. While sometimes legal teams get a bad rap since they typically force businesses to slow down and consider all possible outcomes, legal teams play a vital role in keeping our businesses going.
Understanding The Law to Protect Ourselves
The greater our understanding of the law the more likely we will be able to defend our rights and freedoms. To make sure that we all have access to housing, jobs, and education no matter what protected class we might belong to we have a wide range of anti-discrimination laws to protect us. Federal protected classes include those such as race, religion, creed. national origin, ancestry, sex, age, physical or mental disability, or veteran status.
For example, as a business owner, it is important to understand what we can legally ask during an interview. In addition, it is important to know what we can legally do if someone or some organization is being discriminatory against us because we belong to a protected class. It is important that we know our rights because otherwise we may be harmed.
It is important that we all have a basic understanding of the legal system. We can gain this knowledge by watching the legal system in action, by taking courses in law, or by talking to lawyers before making any major life choices. We can use legal knowledge to help our organizations and businesses not get into legal trouble. We can also use our knowledge of the law to make sure that we are not being discriminated against or discriminating against others. While the law is a very specialized field in truth it impacts each of us every day, so it is important we have some basic knowledge so that we do not find ourselves unnecessarily on the wrong side of it.