By Dan Liutikas, Chief legal Officer of CompTIA and Managing Attorney of ITLA

While liability should be a major concern for virtually every business owner, how many entrepreneurs make finding a well-experienced attorney a top 5 priority? In reality, acquiring new clients and establishing protocols often takes precedence when setting up an IT services operation.  After all, they’ll surely have more time on their hands to search for sound legal advice after the business is up and running ─ right?  

How will you feel if a process server were to show up at your door? If you’ve ever been served with a legal summons related to your IT business operations, you know what it is like to have those “I wish I had taken preventative steps earlier” feelings and thoughts.

More than ever, it is vital to know where your risks are and to take proactive steps to mitigate those risks.  The upfront costs are generally minor compared to dealing with the legal problem when it comes knocking on your front door. U.S. District Courts handled 284,604 civil cases in 2013, as well as 1,107,699 bankruptcy proceedings. A significant portion of those actions involved small businesses and, with a virtually infinite number of legal and compliance issues to deal with, IT service firms make up a larger portion of those court cases every year.  Don’t be one of them.

The Legal Realities

If you haven’t noticed, lawsuits are a real risk for any channel business. Though few owners and executives like to consider their customers or suppliers filing a claim against their company, in reality, it happens every day.

Legal issues truly can bring your organization to a standstill. Whether dealing with a lawsuit or regulatory compliance issue, it can disrupt business plans and pull important employees away from critical operations. If not addressed in a timely fashion, these issues can consume a significant amount of the organization’s resources.

Litigation can also have a negative effect on your company’s reputation and damage relationships with current and prospective clients. Even when a lawsuit is dropped or settled quickly, misleading or false information related to the case may remain on the web and in social media for years to come. From Angie’s List and Yelp to local public forums, the details, whether true or false, are readily accessible to prospects and competitors. That’s a reality of the virtual world we live in and another reason businesses need to solid legal representation.     

Is Your Business Covered?

While no one likes to think about it, lawsuits, compliance violations and bankruptcy are those worst-case legal scenarios every IT firm should be prepared for. Owners and executives need to be as proactive at addressing their own legal vulnerabilities as they would with their clients’ security risks.

Thanks to the new CompTIA Legal Services Program administered by InfoTech Law Advocates (ITLA), solution providers and vendors can avoid the pitfalls without breaking their budgets. It’s a cost-effective way to address the legal concerns of U.S. tech businesses, including managed and cloud services contract support. This program supports the unique needs of any SMB technology company, but CompTIA Premier Members get a variety of additional benefits, such as:

• A free online risk assessment tool that evaluates all areas of your business and identifies potential risks and vulnerabilities;
• Transparent pricing structures which include fixed and subscription fees;
• Once you complete the assessment, you’ll spend an hour in a free consultation with an attorney to review your specific business liabilities and needs;
• Finally, ITLA will handle your annual state entity filing for no charge (one report and some restrictions apply). See all the ITLA’s services here.

Whether you own a one-man (or one-woman) managed services shop or run an emerging IT vendor organization, you now have access to specialized legal services from attorneys who understand our industry. That’s an invaluable opportunity since ITLA is staffed with professionals who not only recognize the unique concerns of the channel, but know how to address those potential liabilities. Best of all, they won’t break your budget or consume too much time learning about what you do.

After you complete the program’s legal assessment, the ITLA team can help address the specific issues that affect your particular business. Take the first step today by checking out CompTIA Memberships and explore the new legal services program page to see how vulnerable your company may really be.