The law plays a surprisingly big part in our lives, and it’s a big part of running a business, protecting the public and ensuring that justice is served in various forms.
In this blog, we’ll explore some of the top reasons you might legal help and show you how the law might interact with your life. We’ll cover everything from writing a will to suing for damages or presenting a lawsuit.
Let’s explore the law!
1 – Writing A Will
A will, or ‘final will and testament’ as it’s formally known, is a legal document informing people how you want your assets to be distributed after you die. With the help of a trusted solicitor, a will is drawn to legally inform your heirs, family members and other relations about what they receive when you pass on.
In the UK, anyone over 18 can make a will if they wish to. Most people will choose to do it once they have significant enough assets to allocate to others, or if they have children, they need to ensure they are taken care of.
2 – Patenting An Idea
A patent is a type of legal protection you can get to own the rights to an invention or idea. It prevents other people from taking your invention or idea and selling it as their own.
If you’ve created something you want to turn into a business, you first need to request a patent for your invention. Patenting is a type of intellectual property law that gives you the right to your invention and the freedom to market it as your own.
While getting a patent without legal help is possible, having a lawyer or patent attorney can help speed up the process and advise you on managing your application and fees. Especially with more than one patent to file for, having legal representation can be a huge bonus.
The patent application process can be very long and demanding, and various fees and documents may need to be demanded at any point. Legal patent professionals will ensure that nothing goes wrong and sets you back time or money.
3 – Trademarking A Business
We’re fortunate enough to live in a time when people have more chances than ever of starting their businesses. One of the most important legal ways to protect yourself when doing this is to ‘trademark’ your branding.
A trademark protects your business’s branding, especially in the modern world – branding is extremely important for telling your target customer who you are and what you do.
Branding can be a word, phrase, design, symbol or combination that identifies your goods as yours. A trademark should:
- Provide legal protection for your branding
- Help guard you against fraud and counterfeiting
- Identify the source of your goods or services
A trademark must be something specific to your brand. For example, you can’t trademark something generalised like the colour pink, but you could trademark a pink logo representing your brand.
Much like applying for a patent for an invention, applying for a trademark can be a long and tedious process filled with various fees and demands for proof that your idea is unique and your own.
Using a specialist trademark lawyer to help you organise your claims can be the best way to ensure that your application goes smoothly.
4 – Legal Defence
There will come a time in most people’s lives when they require some form of legal defence. This can be as small as requesting a lawyer’s help for a wrongful tax claim or ticket or as big as needing legal defence in a court of law.
Especially when running a business, it’s important to have a lawyer or firm on your side whom you trust to stand by you and stand up for you if anything should happen which requires you to employ defence.
5 – Lawsuit
Lawsuits are a type of civil law and are a way of gaining justice when something happens that causes you trouble, like an injury or an injustice. They are a common reason you might need legal help, as they occur much more often than people think. You can claim a lawsuit in several circumstances, including:
- Duty – duty is a person’s legal responsibility to act, for example, if you experience racist abuse at work and the company doesn’t do anything.
- Breach of Duty – similar to the above, this is the failure to act according to the duty.
- Causation – causation is if a person’s actions or inactions have caused an injury. For example, if you slip over on a wet floor at a shop and there is no warning sign.
- Injury – if an injury has occurred in somebody else’s hands, you can sue them for damages.
Why Legal Help Is Important
The law is important because it protects the public from acts of injustice and helps people lawfully start businesses and protect their inventions, interests and themselves.
These top reasons you might need legal help are only a few examples of how the law might interact with you in your everyday life – if you feel you need legal help or protection, you should contact a lawyer to find out your options.
