The first call is free, and it is a phone call, not a video meeting.
Business formation questions rarely arrive on a schedule. They arrive when someone is about to sign something, or has already signed it. These are the four we hear most.
A handshake between two people who trust each other is not the problem. The problem is that it holds no answer for what happens if one of you wants out, stops working, dies, or wants to sell to somebody the other cannot stand. An operating agreement is where those answers get written down while everyone still gets along.
If you have been invoicing, hiring or signing leases without an entity, the law treats you as a sole proprietor and there is no line between the business and everything you own personally. Forming the entity now is straightforward. What takes thought is the contracts, debts and assets already sitting on the wrong side of that line.
An entity formed in one state does not automatically get to operate in the others. Working across state lines usually means registering in each additional state as well, and the states differ on what forming and maintaining a company requires. We practice in all three, which is the reason this page names them.
The filing services file. They do not tell you whether an operating agreement exists, whether the EIN and the tax election match the structure you paid for, whether the state has a further requirement still outstanding, or whether the money is being kept separately enough for the entity to protect you. A certificate is the start of the work, not the end of it.
The filing itself is the fastest part of this. Here is the whole sequence, including the parts that come after the certificate arrives.
You tell us what the business does, who owns it and what could go wrong. We tell you whether you need an entity at all, and roughly which one. Nobody is billed for this.
LLC or corporation, and how it elects to be taxed, are two separate decisions that get treated as one. We work through what each costs you in paperwork, in self employment tax, and in flexibility later if you take on a partner or sell.
A name check so you are not building a brand on something already taken, the formation documents with the state, a registered agent, and the EIN and tax elections that have to match the structure you just chose.
An operating agreement for an LLC, or bylaws and a shareholder agreement for a corporation. This is the step the filing services skip. Without it your company is governed by whatever the state's default rules happen to say, which is nobody's intention and rarely anybody's preference.
Annual filings, separate bank accounts, signing in the company's name, and any requirement that continues past the first year. The liability protection you formed the entity for is not a one time purchase. It depends on the company continuing to look like a company.
Not sure whether you need an LLC or a corporation? That is what the first call is for.
We handle the structure decision, the filings and the documents that govern how the owners deal with each other. You decide what the business is and who runs it; our job is to make sure the paperwork holds up when something goes wrong.
The entity type and how it is taxed are separate choices, and getting them to agree is most of the value. We look at who owns it, what the liability exposure actually is, and whether you are planning to bring anyone else in.
Name availability, formation documents, registered agent, EIN, and the state specific requirements that come with a new entity in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Operating agreements, bylaws and shareholder agreements. Who can sell, who has to be bought out, what happens on a death or a divorce, and how a deadlock gets broken.
New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania differ on what forming and maintaining a company takes. We practice in all three, which matters if you live in one and work in another.
Forming the entity is a filing. What protects you is the document that says what the owners agreed to, and that is part of the engagement rather than an upsell.
This firm handles estates and the disputes that follow them. A company with no succession terms and an owner who has died is the same problem in a different file.
You will be able to explain your own structure to a bank, a partner or an accountant. If you cannot, it has not been explained properly yet.
Call (917) 515-1825 or contact us online to get started
33 reviews
See what our clients have to say about their experience
Knowledgeable, responsive, and extremely easy to work with throughout the trust creation process. Stefan created a highly organized set of documents and walked me through everything step by step from start to finish. I would highly recommend reaching out to him if you are considering estate planning or looking for guidance on setting up a trust.
Forming a company and having the protection you formed it for are two different things. These are the four ways the gap between them shows up.
Limited liability is not absolute. Where the owner and the company share a bank account, where the company was never really funded, or where the paperwork was never kept up, someone suing the business can argue that the entity should be disregarded and seek to hold the owner personally liable. Whether that argument succeeds is ultimately a matter for a court, which is why the entity should be structured and operated in a way that minimizes the grounds for making that argument.
With no operating agreement or bylaws, what happens on a departure, a death or a disagreement is decided by the statute rather than by the owners. It is a complete answer and it is almost never the answer any of them would have picked.
Entities that stop filing what the state asks for can fall out of good standing and, left long enough, be dissolved administratively. It tends to surface at the worst moment, when a bank, a buyer or a landlord runs a search.
The setup that suited one owner and no employees is often the wrong one three years later, after a partner, a payroll or a second state. Changing it is possible. Changing it after the fact is more expensive than choosing it again on purpose.
The structure decision and the agreement between the owners are the two things that decide how much any of the above can cost you, and both are settled at the start for a fraction of what a dispute costs later.
Tell us what the business does and who owns it, and we will tell you what you actually need.
How an LLC is formed in each state, what the operating agreement has to cover, and when the S corporation election is worth making.
Learn More →When a corporation is the better structure, what the bylaws and shareholder agreement need to say, and what the ongoing formalities are.
Learn More →Pick a time below, or call (917) 515-1825. The first fifteen minutes are free.
A phone call, not a video meeting. It helps to know what the business does and who is going to own it.
Need assistance with scheduling?
Click to view additional resources
Tell us what the business does, who the owners are, and whether anything has been filed already. We will come back to you with what we would recommend.
