Startup Lawyer — Specialized Legal Counsel for Founders

A startup lawyer advises founders on the legal decisions that affect the company's ability to grow, raise capital and execute transactions. This includes: choosing and structuring the right corporate entity; drafting founders agreements with vesting to protect against early departures; ensuring IP is properly assigned to the company; negotiating and closing investment rounds (SAFEs, notes, priced rounds); advising on commercial contracts and enterprise deals; managing governance as investors come in; and supporting international expansion or M&A. A startup lawyer is different from a general commercial lawyer — they understand VC mechanics, cap table math and the speed at which startups operate.

The most costly legal mistakes happen at the beginning: co-founders who split equity without a proper agreement, contractors who build IP without assigning it, companies that incorporate in the wrong structure for their goals. The right answer is: before you sign anything significant, before you take money (even from friends and family), and before you bring in your first employee or contractor. A small investment at formation stage prevents expensive cleanups during due diligence. For ongoing support, the signal is when legal tasks start competing with product decisions for founder time.

Startup legal work is typically priced one of three ways: project-based (flat fee for a specific deliverable, like Delaware formation or a SAFE round), hourly (common for traditional firms, less predictable), or monthly retainer (for ongoing GC coverage). We work primarily with project fees and monthly retainers — no hourly billing that creates uncertainty. Delaware C-Corp formation typically runs $3,000-$8,000. A seed round on SAFEs runs $3,000-$6,000. Monthly GC retainers scale with volume, typically starting around $1,500-$3,000/month for early-stage startups. We disclose fees upfront before any engagement.

The foundational documents every startup should have at formation: (1) Certificate of Incorporation / articles of incorporation — the entity itself; (2) Founders equity agreements with vesting (RSAs in a C-Corp); (3) PIIA — Proprietary Information and Inventions Assignment — every founder, employee and contractor signs this to assign IP to the company; (4) IP assignment from founders for pre-company work; (5) Bylaws or operating agreement; (6) Initial Board/organizational resolutions; (7) Cap table. These documents create the legal foundation that everything else — fundraising, hiring, contracts, M&A — gets built on top of.