Bob Halagan - Halagan Law Firm, LTD.

The most dangerous legal expense a company can incur is the cost of litigation.  Whether you are the party suing or being sued, the costs of litigation can eat up your company’s profits in a hurry if you don’t keep a tight lease on the process and on your own attorney.  You should be very concerned with any lawyer who does not work hard to keep you away from a lawsuit.  If you have a claim you think should be pursued, your attorney should be talking with you about how…

There are two situations where a company typically encounters a non-compete:  (1) when it has  valuable employee, information or contacts it wants to keep within the organization; and (2) when a new potential hire arrives with a non-compete that may restrict his/her ability to work for the company.  In either case it is important to understand the fundamentals of how to use a non-compete agreement and when to avoid a potential employee who has one. The first principle to keep in mind is that in Minnesota, non-competes can and often…

A little known secret outside of law offices is that very few lawyers actually try lawsuits in front of a judge or jury anymore.  While criminal defense lawyers still actually try cases, most lawyers representing businesses who call themselves litigators are very rarely, if ever, in court for a trial.  Why is that?  Because it simply costs too much for their clients.  That understanding can be critical for your business to ensure that you have the superior bargaining power to avoid lawsuits and to win negotiations when a business conflict…

One of the most difficult challenges in today’s economy, once you find the work, is to make sure that you get paid for the work that you do.  It has become an all too common story to watch once seemingly “safe” businesses disappear, leaving behind them a string of material suppliers, subcontractors and vendors with worthless accounts receivable and a suddenly severe cashflow problem.  Other companies engage in predatory payment practices such as extensive delays on payment, denying liability simply to leverage the costs of collection or asserting fictitious defects…

You have a key employee who knows all the business secrets of your organization; how do you make sure he doesn’t take them to your competitors and potentially cripple your company?  A key employee from a competitor is looking for a job and you’d like to hire her; what do you need to be concerned about? Protecting business secrets, and avoiding getting sued if you gain access to someone else’s secrets, is an area for which every business needs to have a plan.  Many businesses fail to adequately protect the…

A business partnership is often compared to a marriage and that analogy is especially true when it comes to a business break-up, which can rival any marriage dissolution when it comes to hard feelings, disruption of lives and costs if the partners haven’t properly prepared for a partnership separation.  If you are starting a business or have an established business and are thinking of adding a business partner, you should consider each stage of your relationship with that partner before you take a step forward into a business “marriage.” The…