You’ve invested time, energy and put your heart into creating a business. You need to have a firm foundation in place in order to succeed. Our lawyers will advise you on the necessary steps to become a legal entity authorized to do business in Texas and help you determine the type of business to form (sole proprietor, partnership, corporation) which impacts how you are taxed as well as personal liability. Save time and money by establishing your business correctly from the beginning.

Part of owning a business is keeping abreast of new trends or changes in your specific market. This holds true for your legal needs as well. A Business Audit is a proactive means to ensure your business practices, procedures, contracts and other documents follow current laws and best practices in order to prevent legal issues from arising in the future.

It doesn’t matter if it’s one or one hundred, if your business has employees, the potential for conflict exists. You can reduce the likelihood of problems by having sound practices in place. We can advise you in employment matters such as hiring, termination, disability accommodation, family and medical leave, confidentiality and non-compete agreements, hiring independent contractors, employment contracts, severance agreements and more.

Contracts and agreements are a part of every business. They might be with employees, independent contractors, vendors, shareholders, property leases, and more depending on the industry. Without well-written con-tracts, you could be left open to disputes and expensive lawsuits. Our business law attorneys will assist you in developing contracts with detailed language that leaves nothing to interpretation ensuring that both parties understand what is expected. The legal team at The Hyde Law Firm can advise you in negotiating, drafting, reviewing, and executing business contracts for any industry. We can also represent your interests in breach of contract disputes.

Sometimes, no matter how many measures you have put in place to protect your business, a legal dispute still arises. The Hyde Law Firm is ready to manage your legal needs and act in your company’s best interests. We implement legal strategies aimed to resolve issues as quickly and cost effectively as possible. Potential paths to pursue may include arbitration, mediation or a court trial. Our legal team will explain the benefits and challenges involved with your available options, allowing you to choose the best path to take to settle your dispute. We’ll keep you informed at each step, so you can focus on running your business. Contact us in the Granbury/Hood County Texas area if you have a business dispute involving breach of contract, a contract dispute, partnership or shareholder dispute, premises liability claim, product liability claim, theft of trade secrets, fraud and misrepresentation, deceptive trade practices, breach of fiduciary duty, dissolution of a business, patent infringement and more.

Every business has its own identity. Your logo, a tag line, a unique product, process, or idea, all of these should be legally protected in the event someone else tries to profit from what you have worked hard to create. The Hyde Law Firm will help you accomplish that through copyrights, trademarks and patents.

Trademarks are a form of intellectual property rights that allow consumers to distinguish the source of your goods and services from anyone else’s.  Trademarks include words, symbols, colors and shapes. Essentially anything non-functional that is established through common use to represent a company or product.

Though a copyright is automatic when someone creates an original work and it exists in a tangible form, it may not be possible to defend the work in the case of infringe-ment if it hasn’t been registered. Copyright protection lasts for life of the creator plus 70 years. If authorship is being given to a business/corporation rather than a specific person, then the protection is for the shorter of 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation. Works created prior to January 1, 1978 may have differing lengths of protection.

Patents protect intellectual property such as inventions and innovations. You can patent anything as long as the concept is novel and has beneficial use. To obtain a pat-ent, technical information about the invention or process must be disclosed to the public in a patent application. Protection is granted for a limited period, usually 20 years from the filing date which prohibits others from making, using, or selling your invention or process during that timeframe.