The Not So Legal Show

What should I trademark? A common question asked by business owners. Now, before you feel compelled to make sure that the name of your company has a registered trademark in a classification like “egg incubator” when your company sells T-shirts but of course you “never know” what new business you might get into, think twice. I think that was a very long run-on sentence but that is sort of how it goes. People get overwhelmed by the trademark concept and understandably so. However, no need to file extra classifications when you don’t need them. 

What is a classification? It is basically the “category” that your trademark will fall under. For example, let’s say you have a t-shirt company called Hal’s T-Shirts.  You will most likely want to trademark Hal’s T-Shirts under the category of “T-Shirts” to start.  As you type in the search term “T-Shirts”, the US Identification of Goods and Services Manual (http://tess2.uspto.gov/netahtml/tidm.html), will (hopefully - we will get to the story later where you type in a search term and absolutely nothing that is accurate will come up) turn up the results which will let you know which number is assigned to your classification of your trademark, (T-Shirts happens to be the number 25)

Each trademark classification, if you are filing a regular application, costs $325.00. So, it’s probably not a good idea to pick as many classifications as you can. The goal is to accurately pick the classifications that truly fit your company.  As your company grows, you can add more.  No need to add “egg incubators” when your company has no intention of ever selling those services.  And yes, I did actually find “egg incubators” when I was doing a trademark search one day.

I am going to do more posts on trademark but for now I just wanted to address the classification issue. Don’t feel pressured to file as many trademarks as possible so you can feel “protected”. The goal is to be strategic and really look at your lines of business, what you currently do and where your company will grow in the future. Build your trademark portfolio around those concepts and you are on your way to a successful trademark mission!  

Not sure if anyone has noticed but they did a special on “Cheerleading” on E! over the weekend. Now you might be wondering what I have to say about cheerleading and even more, what cheerleading has to do with the legal world. Well, for starters, I have to admit why I happened to watch that show on E.  I was a cheerleader. I did the whole thing - the outfits, the glitter on the face…and I have to say that I really did love it. However, one thing I never thought of and also was never faced with was being subject to any rules or limitations about what was allowed and what wasn’t when performing stunts.

Now, fortunately for me (and my parents more likely) the school I went to was not a big cheerleading school. I mean, of course we cheered at all of the games, went to cheerleading camp at SMU and sweated our butts off in the 100 degree Texas weather but the liklihood of seeing someone from our sqaud being tossed in the air was about 1 in a million. Maybe putting someone on top of a pyramid was a 1 in 10 chance but we certainly were not the basket-tossing type.

After this weekend, I learned that there were not any rules at all for cheerleading for quite some time.  It took girls flying into the air, landing on their head, neck  and unfortunately suffering some serious injuries to finally get someone to take notice. The American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators was created in 1987 and there are additional courses that seem to be created for new programs on safety. Check out  http://www.cheerleadingsafety.com/ and www.aacca.org. Who knew one could learn so much from watching E!.

In any event, an interesting legal situation is created if someone gets hurt as technically whose fault is it? Is the person who was responsible for catching the person? Is it the coach who should have been watching more closely? Is it the school who hired the coach who should have been watching more closely?

I am really happy that some light has been shed on this topic as cheerleading is becoming more of an aggressive sport and there should be some rules governing this situation. Accidents do happen but the more knowledge and training we can give coaches, the better. Parents also need to pay attention to who is coaching their kids. You don’t want to have to be calling an attorney because your kid got hurt when you could have checked out the coaches credentials yourself. Rules for the short skirts!

Does anyone think that if someone escapes from jail and is found over 20 years later, that the person should go back to jail?  In the news the other day, I read about this woman who escaped from prison in 1976 and was recently caught. It’s like The Fugitive but kind of like if one of the housewives of Orange County was arrested. She claims the charges against her were drug related but that she wasn’t a dealer. Of course Michigan authorities are saying her story doesn’t add up. Shocker. I can imagine it would be difficult to go back to jail when you are 53 years old. I am sure she figured - what’s the harm? No one has caught me so I can just continue going on with my life but I just wonder how hard it was to keep a secret like that? Here is the article for anyone who is interested: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fugitive1-2008may01,1,2480068.story - hopefully you will be able to open it. If not, go to www.latimes.com and type in “woman going to prison for escaping jail time in 1976″.

In any event, the people in Michigan are saying she didn’t serve the appropriate amount of time in jail so she has to go back. There are consequences to your actions. She should have just served the time when she was 19, gotten out and now she wouldn’t have to be dealing with this.

Most people can’t stand lawyers but the truth is, who do you think the first person she called was after she told her husband? I am curious to see how it plays out but if Michigan goes by the letter of the law, she is going back to the slammer. 

The law is a strange bird and truly, the people practicing it are even stranger sometimes so there is definitely some attorney out there representing her and saying things like “she’s a model citizen”. But, it’s like my dad says, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time”.

Eliot Spitzer. A name that perhaps a few years ago conjured up images of beating up the bad guys, fighting the good fight.  But what now? What happens now to a guy who has everything going for him and decided he wanted $4,000 (is that how much it was?) sex? Did he ever think “is this legal”? Was it a thought that crossed his mind and he decided to ignore it?

What makes someone ignore that small little voice that says “this isn’t legal” when they know they are doing something wrong? Did Eliot Spitzer make that conscious decision and if so, how bizarre is that? The guy pursued organized crime! He spent time fighting the guys that don’t care what “legal” means and even “organize” plans around beating the system. Did he want to just see what he could get away with? Was he just a guy bored with his marriage and wanted to add some excitement? Regardless, before he found that prostitute, he HAD to have a moment where he thought to himself that what he was doing was wrong. Or worse, he never even thought about it and how sad is that.  

This is a case where being not so legal really took a turn for the worse.  People try to get away with things and I’m here to say that being “not so legal” never works out. It just never does.

Now, this show is legal but not so legal that I can’t say something about a great band. The band is called Matt Pond Pa. I highly recommend checking them out. www.mattpondpa.com. More on record deals tomorrow.

When should you sign an employee agreement vs. being an at-will employee where you can leave anytime you would like?  Strategically speaking, you better make sure you like the job if you are signing a contract!

The upside of signing an employment agreement is that you have stability and hopefully a payout in the event the company terminates you with or without cause. The downside is that you are stuck with the job. Although, I do believe anything is negotiable so there is always hope to try to get out of the agreement as if you want out and the company wants you out, certainly there is a way to negotiate around the agreement that is in place.  

Where it gets tricky is when you have a non-compete clause in the agreement and now you have brought in the biggest piece of business, but want to leave the company.  This is where instincts come in. Before you even take the job, if they are asking you to sign a non-compete, you have to check in with yourself and get a sense of how seriously they plan on taking their own non-compete clause.

At the end of the day, if a client hires you and that particular client likes you, technically there is not much the company can do, literally speaking as hey, is it really your fault if the client likes you best? However, if there is alot of money at stake, you risk being sued, along with having your client as a co-defendant who the company will argue is interfering with business relations.  It is very tricky business in the area of a non-compete clause and on an aside, a company can have you sign one even if you are an at-will employee.

Go with the Stephanie gut check: If you think the person that is hiring you would rather let you starve than take a big client, even when the big client wants to only use you on the account anyway, do yourself a favor and take a different job. I know it is difficult as everyone is on their best behavior in the first interview but you have to listen to your gut instincts!

The norm is that most people are at-will employees and must sign a handbook, a code of behavior of some sorts and perhaps a non-compete. However, there are those times where an employment agreement is given and I would think twice before you lock yourself in.

What happens when you do good work for someone and they don’t pay you? Well, there are a few options, including suing the person, not suing the person or maybe getting a collection agency to go after the person. If you have the ability and time, filing a lawsuit could be a good idea.

However, what if the person doesn’t respond? Should you call it quits? My recommendation would be to take it as far as you can to get a judgment against the person. A collection agency can go after them once you get the judgment but if you don’t have the judgment at all, you are quite limited in what you can do.

The key is to figure out early on whether the person is worth suing or not. Do an asset check. See if you can find out what bank they belong to. These tips will help determine what you can get out of the lawsuit if the person does actually show up or even if they don’t.  By having a good understanding of their net worth, you will be able to see if you can actually get anything out of them if your judgment is successful.

Privacy is a big issue these days in the legal system, just look at what happened at UCLA and the medical records that were not kept oh so confidential.  Everyone wants privacy yet it seems we all join sites that give us the exact opposite. Check out the article on reunion.com. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus16apr16,0,6520320.column 

I actually received an email from someone saying they had “searched” me on reunion.com. I barely knew this person but still checked out the site. Now, after looking at the site, I quickly decided I didn’t have time to sign up so that was the end of it. However, the article in the Times mentions a woman who accidentally sent a request to 250 of her contacts to join Reunion.com. Nightmare.

Then you have….Twitter. A site where you can willingly follow someone’s every move for entertainment. In fact you can have as many followers as you would like. It’s almost like giving a God complex to people that have more followers than others. I mean, do I really care that you just ate a burrito? At first I refused to sign up but even I, Stephanie, am following a few people. Mainly for business purposes but it still feels kind of odd. I just hope I never run into them as it would feel kind of funny to know I have completely been following a person that doesn’t even know me. Better to be a leader than a follower or better to be a Twitterer?  

Are there any activities that you do where you wonder whether technically it is legal or not? There is a part of me that thinks people will try to get away with as much as possible. What about karma, the idea of heaven/hell or maybe just good ol’ plain guilt where you know you are doing something wrong?

The question is how often people are doing something where they think “legal or no so legal”.  I am not a saint but I don’t find myself asking those questions too often. Who does? Send me a comment.

I highly recommend using “UCC connect” for UCC filings with the State of California. For example, you could file different filings such as a Form UCC1 which per the State of California is (http://www.sos.ca.gov/business/ucc/ra_9_ucc-1page.htm):

A Financing Statement (Form UCC1) is filed to perfect a security interest in named collateral and establishes priority in case of debtor default or bankruptcy.

Don’t you just love official definitions. At first it may be a bit confusing but you don’t actually need to be a subscriber; you can simply type in your credit card number and it will let you have access to the system.

However, it is important to write down the reference code as if you don’t write that down, you have NO way of determining what has happened. Providing the reference code is the only way they will go into the system to see what you have done if by some chance you typed in something wrong and need to double check it.

I was told today that your filings will be posted one hour after you file them online. I am going to check to see if this is the case but I will keep you posted.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/business/ucc/ra_9_faqs.htm