Legal Environment (It will be based on the Accountable Company. Research paper and PowerPoint presentation)

Final Research Paper
Your final research paper will segue from your Week 5 and 6 exercises: Your discussion
memorandum concerning the relative strengths and weakness of different business
organizations and your company formation documents and form. The final paper should
be between six and ten pages in length, typed, double-spaced, Arial, 12-point font with
one inch margins and otherwise follow APA formatting. As with all assignments, papers
should be written at the graduate level. This means the students should employ clear,
concise language and proper grammar. Additionally, students should strive to avoid
misspelled words and other typos. Again: Basic questions: Would you submit this
paper to a prospective employer as a writing sample? Would you think that a person
who submitted your paper to you as his/her writing sample—respected you?
The final paper should identify a business opportunity and discuss the standard
contracts necessary for the operation of the business opportunity and the appropriate
choice of business organization for the business opportunity. Although the context for
this paper is a business opportunity, you are to write a “legal” plan for (a) identifying,
avoiding or minimizing the legal risks inherent in the business which you choose; and
(b) identifying and implementing legal strategies for maximizing the strength of your
business.
Thus, you should think through the materials which you have covered in this course,
including the submissions you made in Week 5 (concerning the strengths and
weakness of different kinds of business organizations) and Week 6 (setting up your
corporation). Every chapter in this course has focused upon legal problems. Where did
they come from? The simple answer concerns the relationship which business owners
had with each other, their investors, their employees, their customers, their creditors,
their suppliers, and with governmental agencies. In one way or another, every case
which we studied involved a problem with those relationships that led to a lawsuit or
even a criminal prosecution.
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At a fundamental level, a legal business plan must identify those persons who may
bring lawsuits or even criminal prosecutions as a result of how a business is run. A
legal business plan will then strategize to avoid those suits altogether or, at least, to
mitigate the damages. How? By identifying the laws, regulations, ordinance, licensing
rules, taxation rules, contracts, insurance agreements, bonding agreements, etc.,
involved. In one way or another, every lawsuit alleges the violation of a duty. Every
duty springs from laws, etc. And every such violation can be avoided or minimized by
your choice of a business organization, a contract, an insurance contract, a bonding
agreement, an accountant, a lawyer, a risk manager, etc. Your paper will be evaluated
on the basis of your research into the risks and ways to deal with risks inherent in your
chosen business. Try to “think of everything.”
Some ground rules:
1. Your business plan should contemplate at least three owners. You should not
choose either a “sole proprietorship” or “general partnership.” In no instance
should you choose a business organization simply in order to avoid “paperwork”
in setting up the business. You really should know better than that by now:
While a sole proprietorship or a general partnership might be easy to get off the
runway, literally by the same token such a business organization can be the first
to crash—because it offers no legal protections when things go wrong.
2. Your paper should not try to finesse the assignment by stating that you plan on
checking all the laws, regulations, etc., necessary to run the business. This
paper presupposes you have been doing that all term long as you have studied
business law in this course. This paper should do that right now.
3. You should review the entire syllabus. You will note that in Week 5 you are to
submit a discussion memorandum based upon your participation in the
Discussion Forum and that this memorandum is to address the relative legal
strengths and weaknesses of certain business organizations. You will also note
that in week 6 your are to submit forms and documents for the creation of a
limited liability company. You should incorporate a discussion of the week 5 and
week 6 exercises into your Final Research Paper.
4. Finally, do not “self-plagiarize” and turn in a paper recycled from another course.
Along those same lines, it will not help your grade to write up a business plan
that waxes eloquently on how wonderful and fun the business will be to run. Let
the business you choose speak for itself in that regard and get straight to the
point: How can this business be set up and then be run, day by day, into the
future, without getting into trouble with the government, with itself (fights between
and among co-owners and employees), and with third parties (fights with
customers, suppliers, vendors, and others). This paper should anticipate
problems coming up every single day that will turn this business from fun into a
nightmare.
This paper is not due until Week 8. It is anticipated, however, that a graduate level
quality paper will require twenty or more hours of work. You should plan and execute
this assignment accordingly.