Buyer of Nontraditional Legal Services, Beware All kinds of business forms are offered online, and many of them for free. Stand-alone paralegal services are offering various sorts of assistance to small businesses for significantly less than lawyers generally charge. Accounting and bookkeeping services that organize businesses are increasingly positioning themselves…
Family Owned BusinessSuccession or Dissolution? They make great stories when they’re successful, but maintaining continuity of family-owned businesses from generation to generation presents many challenges. A family-owned business can be an excellent means of transferring and preserving generational wealth when run smoothly. Learning to work together as a family can…
How Do Family Businesses Survive Transition? The Cornell University Smith Family Business Initiative says that more than three-quarters (77%) of small businesses rest on significant family involvement. Family Enterprise USA has counted 5.5 million family businesses in the U.S., finding that they contribute 57% of the U.S. GDP, employ 63%…
Illinois Amends One Day in Seven Rest Act The new year will bring with it activation dates for new or amended state legislation that passed earlier this year, some of which will have an impact on small business owners and their employees. One significant change that employers should know about…
What Would It Mean for Your Business? Illinois voters will have the opportunity on Election Day, November 8, to vote “yea” or “nay” on an amendment to the state constitution that would protect workers’ rights to collectively bargain, while prohibiting state legislators from making Illinois a “right to work” state,…
Can I-Robot Hold a Patent? An obscure but telling sign of when the robots will have taken over will be in evidence when they’re allowed to be named as inventors on patent applications. But that day—when “I, Robot”-like artificial intelligence is thusly recognized as rivaling that of humans—hasn’t come about…
Texts can be held against you in court. Alex Jones lawyers (perhaps inadvertently) turned 2-years of texts to the lawyers for the Sandy Hook families. What would be the repercussions for the disclosure if the trial were in Illinois? The parents of a 6-year-old child that was killed in…
Bellas & Wachowski – Chicago Business Lawyers Small businesses with 16 to 24 employees that have been operational for at least two years and don’t already offer qualifying retirement plans will, as of November 1, 2023 be subject to the requirements of the Illinois Secure Choice Savings Program Act. Under…
The City of Chicago’s newly amended sexual harassment ordinance, which takes effect July 1, will bring an enhanced definition of the term, new written policy and notice requirements, new training requirements for employers, additional safety measures, a longer statute of limitations—and heftier penalties for those found guilty. Every Chicago business…
Subchapter V for Small Business Owners For the past two years, small businesses whose bottom lines were impacted by the onset of COVID-19 enjoyed greater protections while going through Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganizations in the form of higher debt limits under the Small Business Reorganization Act. That act, passed in…