With the Blue Jackets on a roll, we thought we’d bring you a hockey themed blog this week. Hockey is a team sport, of course, and one of the most important jobs on any team is the enforcer. The enforcer is the player who makes sure that your stars aren’t getting hit, who keeps the big scorers from being knocked around, and who takes responsibility for protecting the other players on the ice. The enforcer isn’t always the most popular guy on the team, rarely scores goals, and is often tangled up with an opposing player over who controls the ice, but when the gloves come off and a fight breaks out, everyone on the team is glad to have him on board.

When you are setting up your business, it is important to identify who that person is in your team at the outset. Your sales staff is going to score goals, your CPA and your financial advisor are going to take turns in goal, making sure that no unexpected expense or tax strategy escapes, and your insurance agent is going to play defense, keeping the business going even when disaster strikes. Those are all great team members, and they are the roles that often get filled as you start your business or before. But what are you going to do if a fight breaks out and you don’t have an enforcer on your bench?

When starting a business, you need to plan for what you will do when the unexpected happens. When your vendor sends the wrong order and won’t fix it, or when your client stiffs you, or when one of your employees takes your business information to a competitor, you need someone to take up the fight for you so you can keep running your business. These are all fights that companies often find themselves in, and they don’t know who they’ll go to until they are already in the middle of it.

That is why the most important thing your attorney can provide you isn’t her advice or the written work she produces, but the relationship she develops with you and your business. After all, when you find out your client isn’t going to pay, what would you rather do – make one phone call and know that it’s handled, or start the process of interviewing attorneys and asking your friends for referrals? And when you’re in the middle of the fight, do you want someone asking how your business works before they can respond to your opponent, or do you want someone who has been to your facility and already knows to call Terry in the receiving department with that question, because you won’t have the answer?

Here at Lardiere McNair, we don’t get in fistfights, but we do fight for our clients in court and at the negotiating table. The question for you is are we already on your bench, or are you crossing your fingers, hoping you won’t need us?

Ben Worsowicz is an Associate at Lardiere McNair, LLC.  To read more about our firm, please visit www.lmcounsel.com.

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