Your Business Your Way, With Sal’s Help
Every business offers its ownership group a great deal of personal and professional freedom. However, those freedoms and advantages can come with significant legal red tape. You want a firm that can help you resolve any legal problems and remain profitable.
At Frontiero Law Office, P.C., attorney Sal Frontiero is a dedicated problem-solver for business law clients. His attentive, thorough work has provided business owners across Gloucester with the legal coverage they need. His attention to detail and decades of experience are a massive benefit to every business he works with.
Starting Your Business
Opening your doors can be as simple as unlocking in the morning and putting up a shingle. However, businesses carry many regulatory, financial and liability risks that make doing it the fast way more trouble than you can afford. As your lawyer, Sal Frontiero will help you decide what your business structure should be:
- Private ownership
- Limited Liability Company
- S Corporation
- Business purchases and sales
He will also provide you with representation and counsel to craft business contracts, partnership agreements and many other vital documents. You can rely on attorney Frontiero to streamline your business creation.
Protecting Your Business
Every single business runs into disagreements of some kind, but they don’t have to derail your strategies entirely. With Sal Frontiero on your side, you can confidently confront business disputes such as:
- Contract breaches
- Partnership disputes
- Duty breaches
- Employment disputes
Every dispute your business has is both stressful and costly, but with Frontiero Law Office, P.C., behind you, you can rest a little bit easier.
Your Questions Deserve Answers
You wouldn’t be a business owner if you didn’t have a lot of questions about your industry and how to be more profitable. Here are answers to a few of the questions Sal Frontiero gets most frequently from entrepreneurs.
Should you incorporate your business?
Many people operate their businesses as sole proprietorships or “DBAs” without ever considering the advantages or disadvantages of incorporating their businesses. For example, many business owners are unaware that their personal creditors can often reach and attach their business assets if they operate as sole proprietorships. Conversely, creditors of a sole proprietorship or DBA can often reach and attach the personal assets of the business owner, including the family home, if the assets of the business are insufficient to cover the amount owed to the creditor. A properly formed and managed corporation can avoid such problems. On the downside, corporations must follow certain “corporate formalities” and are generally subject to greater regulatory requirements than unincorporated businesses.
In deciding whether to incorporate, advice from attorneys and accountants will allow the business owner to make a well-informed, intelligent decision.
What injuries are covered under workers’ compensation law?
According to Massachusetts law, the Workers’ Compensation Act applies to injuries “arising out of and in the course of employment.” Many lawsuits have centered on whether a particular injury does, in fact, arise in this manner. The key question is whether the employment duties placed the employee within the area of risk which resulted in the injuries suffered. Whether the employer is at fault is irrelevant.
Whether a particular injury is covered under the Act is determined on a case-by-case basis. For example, the Act applies to some lunch-hour injuries. If an employee is sent away on a business trip, he or she is covered twenty-four hours per day, unless the employee is injured while engaged in an activity that is in no way related to the business purpose of the trip. By contrast, injuries occurring while traveling to and from work are generally covered only if the injury occurs while on the employer’s property.
What is a trademark?
A trademark is a “distinctive mark” of authenticity through which the products or services of one manufacturer or organization may be distinguished from another. A trademark can consist of words, symbols, or signs. Once a company obtains a trademark, it has rights to the exclusive use of that mark.
In order to establish trademark status, the owner of the mark must show that the public associates the mark with the producer or owner of the goods. Marks that are “inherently distinctive” or unique, such as the McDonald’s golden arches, easily gain trademark status. However, for marks that are not inherently distinctive, such as Copy Cop’s three English Bobbies, the manufacturer or organization must show that the mark has attained a “secondary meaning” in the public such that it is now associated with a particular organization or manufacturer. Once trademark status is attained, the owner of a mark can sue anyone who makes use of the same or similar mark such that it causes a “likelihood of confusion” in the public as to the source of the goods or services.
Dedication. Experience. Strength.
Your business is important and vital, and you deserve to work with an attorney who believes in your work as much as you do. Reach out to Frontiero Law Office, P.C., for a free consultation by calling 978-528-3778 or sending an email using this form.