Industry
Part of Which of the nine business law areas actually applies to you
Business law basics intake checklist: facts, dates, documents and urgency test
A business law intake checklist to record facts, dates, exact legal names and documents before you call a lawyer or agency, plus a five-question urgency test.
A lawyer's first hour is usually spent reconstructing a story the client already knows. That hour is billed, it is dull for both parties, and most of it is avoidable. What follows is an intake sheet you fill in yourself before the call, plus the test for whether you need the call at all.
Nothing here states what any rule requires. It is a way of turning a worry into a set of facts, so that whoever answers it, a lawyer, an agency, or your accountant, is answering the right question about the right business on the right dates.
If your worry is a license, a permit, a renewal, or a compliance rule, this sheet works the same way. It turns the question into the dates, documents, and agency names a licensing or compliance answer needs.
The rule itself is not stated here. The sheet just makes sure you ask about the right license, the right jurisdiction, and the right renewal date.
What to take away
- Write the situation as facts and dates before you write it as a question. The question changes once the dates are in order.
- Exact legal names and exact document versions do more work than any amount of background.
- Two dates decide urgencythe earliest deadline that has already started running, and the date something is due to be signed or renewed.
- The sheet is reusable. Keep the blank one where the next awkward email will find it.
Part one: the situation, in facts
Fill each line with something checkable. Where you do not know, write "not known" rather than a guess, because "not known" is itself a finding.
Intake sheet: facts to fill
- What happenedtwo sentences, no adjectives
- When it happeneddates in order
- Who is involvedexact legal names and roles
- What is in writingdocuments, dates, storage
- What money is at stakecommitted and potential
- What is due nextdeadline, notice, renewal, hearing
- What you want to happenoutcome stated plainly
| Field | What goes here |
|---|---|
| What happened | Two sentences, no interpretation, no adjectives |
| When it happened | Dates, in order, including when you found out |
| Who is involved | Exact legal names, not trading names, plus the role of each |
| What is in writing | Every document and message, with its date and where it is stored |
| What money is at stake | The amount already committed, and the amount that could be |
| What is due next | Any deadline, notice period, renewal, or hearing, with its date |
| What you have already done | Including anything you have said, sent, or paid since it started |
| What you want to happen | The outcome, stated plainly, even if it is unrealistic |
The last line is the one people skip and the one that shapes the advice. "I want them to pay" and "I want this over" lead to different recommendations.
Part two: which areas is this in
Tick every one that could apply, not just the obvious one. Most situations touch two or three, and the second one is usually where the deadline is.
Tick every area that applies
- Entity and ownershipwho owns, who binds
- Contractcustomer, supplier, landlord, lender
- Employmentanyone who does work
- Taxregistration, collection, withholding, filing
- Licensing and permissionmay the activity be carried on
- Consumer and advertisingwhat was claimed or promised
- Privacy and datainformation about people
- Intellectual property and liability outside contract
- Entity and ownershipwho owns the business, who can bind it, what the governing documents say.
- Contractan agreement with a customer, supplier, landlord, platform, or lender.
- Employmentanyone who does work for the business, however they are labeled.
- Taxregistration, collection, withholding, or filing at any level.
- Licensing and permissionwhether the activity may be carried on at all, at each of the layers license fundamentals separates.
- Consumer and advertisingwhat was claimed, disclosed, or promised to buyers.
- Privacy and datainformation about people, held or shared.
- Intellectual propertynames, brands, content, designs, yours and other people's.
- Liability outside contractinjury, property, or loss to someone you never contracted with.
The nine areas and what each governs are set out in business law basics. The purpose of ticking rather than choosing is that the professional needs to know what you ruled out as well as what you ruled in.
Part three: the documents to attach
Attach the document, not a description of it. Six items cover most situations.
Documents to attach
- Governing document for the business
- Signed agreement with attachments
- Any variation, written or by message
- Complete correspondence in date order
- Registrations, licenses, certificates with numbers
- Insurance policy wording, not the schedule
Get the governing document for the business, whatever its form. Get the agreement at the center of the situation, in the version actually signed, with attachments. Include any variation, written or by message.
Keep the correspondence complete and in date order, not curated. Add relevant registrations, licenses, or certificates with numbers and current status. Add the insurance policy wording, not the schedule or summary.
Two habits make this quick when it matters. Keep signed agreements and their attachments together, not in two systems. Keep messages that changed them in the same place, since informal variations are what a dispute turns on.
Which clauses carry the money is set out in contracts and liability. Know that before you attach anything, since it tells you what to read first.
Part four: the urgency test
Answer these five before deciding whether this can wait.
Urgency test: any yes means today
Has anyone mentioned a claim, lawyer, regulator, or court?
treat as today
continue to next question
- Has anyone mentioned a claim, a lawyer, a regulator, or a court?
- Is there a date in the papers by which you must respond, as distinct from the date by which you must comply?
- Is anything due to be signed, renewed, or allowed to auto-renew in the next month?
- Could this reach an owner personally, through a guarantee, a personal act, or money that was held for somebody else?
- Is anything still happening that is making it worse?
Any yes moves this to today. A response deadline in particular is the one that costs people the argument they would have won, which is why violations and renewals treats reading a notice for its dates as the first action rather than the second.
Part five: what you can probably do yourself
Handle these alone: routine registration or periodic filing on an authority's own form. Update your contact details with an office that holds them and read a published rule to see if its scope covers you.
Request your own file or record from an agency and ask an issuing office a factual question about its own process.
The federal small-business guidance on staying legally compliant is written for exactly this band of work, and it is a fair guide to where the routine ends.
Free local counselling exists for the same band: the SBA resource partner network is not a substitute for a lawyer and is very good at telling you which of your questions needs one.
Part six: after the conversation
Write four things down while the call is fresh: what you were told, what you were told to do, by when, and what the adviser said they would need if it escalates.
After the conversation: write four things
- What you were told
- What you were told to do
- By when
- What the adviser will need if it escalates
Then put the dates somewhere they will be seen. Advice with a date attached that never reaches a calendar is advice you paid for and will not use, which is the same failure compliance calendars exists to prevent, and it is far more common than misunderstanding the advice itself.
Common questions
Is this checklist a substitute for legal advice?
No. It is a way of arriving at legal advice cheaper and of finding out, sometimes, that you do not need any. It states no rule and could not: what applies to you depends on where you are, when this happened, and facts only you hold.
What if I genuinely cannot afford a lawyer?
Fill the sheet in anyway, because it is the thing that makes a short consultation useful. Then ask the free counselling services what parts of the situation are routine, ask the relevant agency factual questions about its own process, and spend the money you have on the single question where being wrong is most expensive.
How much detail is too much?
There is no such thing on the documents and there very much is on the narrative. Two sentences of what happened plus a complete set of dated documents beats five pages of explanation, every time.
Should I keep the completed sheet?
Yes, with the date on it. If the situation returns, or a similar one does, the old sheet tells you what you knew and when, which is the same reason an agency's answer is worth recording with a name and a date beside it.
