The C-RICH framework

⚡ tl;dr your legal needs can be divided into 5 areas corporate this is the internal money and power structure of your company and its internal organization this includes the type of entity and organizational structure, the relationship between shareholders, the decision making mechanisms, and how profits and exit proceeds are distributed regulatory this is the company's relationship with the government it includes the restrictions that regulations place on your business and the compliance requirements you must fulfill most regulations are industry specific (e g , financial services), but some apply to all businesses (e g , data privacy and taxation) ip this is the company's intellectual property, such as its brand, software code copyrights, patents, and trade secrets the key issue is to ensure that the company (not the founders or service providers) owns the ip, and that your ip protects your company from competition contracts contracts govern the company's relationship with other private sector actors such as vendors, partners, and customers hr this area relates to the company's relationship with its employees this includes hiring and firing, work permits, social security contributions, sick leave allowances, etc ❓ what is c rich? we understand that you have many other things to deal with besides legal issues therefore, to create value, we wanted to simplify legal problems and provide you with principles and frameworks that will help you to approach legal issues in a simpler way the c rich is our framework it stands for c orporate, r egulatory, i p, c ontracts and h r you will see that this guide is structured according to this framework, so you can easily identify which topic is in which area of law we've been using the c rich framework internally since the beginning of lexr, and it's time to share it with you 🤑 corporate the corporate area relates to the company's internal organization and could be summarized as " power & money" power is directly related to a company's internal organization it includes the determination of the legal entity and the implementation of internal documents, such as a shareholder agreement, that not only define who can decide on which issues with which majority but also whether some parties can "force" other parties to sell their shares or to vote in a certain way money relates to the financing of a company, as well as who gets what percentage of the exit proceeds when the company is sold, and who gets what dividend generally, corporate issues are internal to the company, including its investors 🛡️ regulatory the regulatory part of the c rich model refers to the relationship between government and business regulations can make or break your business in highly regulated fields (financial services, med tech, public sector, etc ), non compliance can mean the end of your business it's up to each company to decide how much regulatory risk it wants to take since 99% of regulations are industry specific , it's important for you to know your industry once you understand your regulatory landscape, it may make sense to restructure your business model to avoid highly regulated areas that require costly compliance and licensing one exception to industry specific regulations is data privacy, which affects all businesses get the basics right from the start 💡 ip ip stands for intellectual property and this part of the c rich model relates to the protection of a company's ip for many companies, especially in the tech sector, ip is a key issue because it is at the heart of your business model the law provides protection for ideas to incentivize r\&d in particular, it relates to the ownership of an idea, its patentability or its copyright protection, but also to trademarks and their relevance in the development of a brand the key element, especially in the beginning, is to make sure that all ip actually belongs to the company and not to the founders or their contractors another element is knowing when and what to keep confidential protection does not always work, big players can be ruthless, and you need to implement the right safeguards to keep your ip confidential or protected 📑 contracts contracts are the fundamental tool for a company to communicate with the outside world , be it on a business level or for renting the company's office while most legal documents are contracts, this part of the c rich framework refers to the agreements that govern your business relationship this includes terms and conditions, license agreements, partnerships, etc all contracts can be complex and must be approached on a risk/reward basis keep in mind that contracts need to address what happens when things go wrong and allow you to maintain strategic flexibility by not being locked in without the ability to terminate 👥 hr hr stands for human resources the hr part of the c rich model refers to a company with its employees, freelancers, or board members essentially, it is your strategy for attracting and retaining talent , and includes the employment agreement, but also compensation through stock option plans and bonuses, as well as the ability for employees to work remotely