Does Your Manufacturing Company Have a Legal Blueprint?

Most of the time, until your manufacturing business is a certain size, you do not have a general counsel who is part of your team. Instead, your Chief Financial Officer hires outside legal counsel, on an as-needed basis, to put out a “fire” or handle one particular matter. As a result, what might be missing in your strategic planning is a legal blueprint that gives guidance on how things are handled within your manufacturing business. This legal blueprint is formulated using both the historical issues on how legal problems are detected and solved, as well as going forward within your current vision of the company and its needs in the future.

Just as in other areas of your business where you have set up systems and processes, this methodology should also lend itself to the legal platform. In the legal platform, there should be a general history of the company and its evolution. This can be used to give the other managers who come on board a historical context of the company. In addition, it is a good idea to keep the written vision of the company for the next three to five years, as the direction of each aspect of the business, including the legal part, will be measured against that vision.

Starting from both history and vision, what are the aspects of the business that need to be covered in a legal blueprint? There are general items that may be present for many companies, such as:

• Corporate documentation/maintenance of legal entities
• Insurance
• Cyber issues
• Property issues
• Library of template documents
• Labor issues
• Protection of trade secrets
• Non-competition agreement for sales and management
• Governmental oversight

While there are more general items in the list, if the vision is taking the company into an area with significant intellectual property, then the protection of the intellectual property for the company needs to be part of the blueprint. In like manner, if your manufacturing business is or will be selling, warehousing, or manufacturing in multiple states, this needs to be included in the list of items to be included, as there are different legal considerations that can arise because of that factor.

Besides making the list of these items, each must be built out. For instance, there should be checklists and tickler systems that will monitor that each legal entity is in good standing, fits together with the other legal entities as intended, are current with all renewal applications, and are in compliance with all state laws in the state of formation, as well as the states in which they operate.

Each of the items will have a structure behind it that will allow the legal team to make sure that the protections needed for the company to grow, while it is legally protected, as well as to identify where additional protections may be necessary. This will allow the company to have systems and processes so things do not fall between the cracks, and fewer legal specialists will have to be hired to put out the fires.

The legal blueprint described above is the legal platform that every manufacturing company needs to grow. This is hard to do if your legal team only consists of lawyers putting out fires. It is much easier if you have inhouse counsel, or you use an outsourced general counsel (OGC) who will have the historical context, as well as the vision going forward to eliminate problems that can impede your manufacturing company’s growth.

Hiring an outsourced general counsel who will learn your business, work for you proactively, and save you time and money is key to bringing your company further success. Business can sometimes be hard enough – you don’t need to have the lack of a legal blueprint or proper legal help get in the way.

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Denice Gierach

Gierach Law Firm

Denice Gierach is an attorney, CPA, Northwestern University business master's graduate, and has owned several businesses from real estate to manufacturing. She is the lead attorney at Gierach Law Firm in the Chicago area. With more than 30 years of experience, she has been a respected and sought-after resource for businesses looking to grow, sell, solve problems, and succeed long term. Her insights across business areas gives a fuller lens to business issues and solutions, and helps businesses grow and succeed with less time spent on legal issues and other time-consuming problems.

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