Legal Problems Never Come Alone
When a business faces serious legal trouble, the impact radiates outward. The legal issues create financial strain—unpaid receivables, mounting attorney fees, attention diverted from revenue-generating activities. Relationships suffer too: business partners, employees, and spouses all feel the pressure. The toxicity drains your optimism and energy, which employees pick up on—and that’s when good people start leaving.
Get Objective Expertise in Your Corner
The most important step is getting an attorney who understands the complexities of your situation and can help you build a prioritized plan of attack. When I’ve faced legal trouble personally, I’ve hired attorneys—even though I am one—because you’re too close to the problem. You need someone who is both expert and objective to assess your position and develop a strategy that addresses the most urgent issues first.
Consider a Turnaround Attorney
If your business is in genuine chaos—multiple lawsuits, creditor pressure, operational dysfunction—look for a turnaround attorney. These are lawyers who specialize in stabilizing businesses under distress. They’ve seen the pattern before, they know how to create order from disorder, and they can help you build a realistic path forward. Search for “turnaround attorney” or “business turnaround consultant” to find professionals in this space.
Triage Ruthlessly
Not every legal problem deserves the same attention. Prioritize by urgency and potential impact on the business. Address the threats that could shut you down first, negotiate what you can, and defer the lower-stakes issues. A methodical, strategic approach beats the panic-driven reaction that most business owners default to when everything hits at once.
Video Transcript
When Your Business is Facing a Variety of Legal Threats and Problems, What Are Your Options?
I am going to approach this in a holistic way because this is not a unique situation. In fact, many small businesses fail. And if you are a business owner who is going through legal trouble, you are feeling a variety of complex emotions and dealing with complex problems. Here are some of what you are dealing with: you feel overwhelmed because you don’t fully understand and are new to all the legal terms and concepts, claims, and threats related to what you are encountering. A lot of times you feel like these are false accusations. There might be some truth to it. You might have had some liability, but you don’t quite know where those lines are. What did I do wrong and what was justified? So that is the legal overwhelming piece.
You probably are also dealing with difficult financial circumstances because usually, the legal stuff causes financial problems. Perhaps you haven’t been paid what you are supposed to get paid by people. Perhaps you are spending a lot of money on legal fees. Perhaps your attention has been focused on the lawsuits and the legal problems rather than growing the business and keeping it going and making money. But it is very common when companies go through legal problems to also be facing financial crises.
You may also be dealing with difficult relationship circumstances, whether that be a business partner, employees who are feeling the heat from what you are doing, a spouse, or a relationship partner who is trying to provide support during this time or is feeling stressed by what you are going through because you need somebody to talk to about some of this stuff. You want to be transparent to some extent with a partner about what is happening to the extent that the crisis affects the partner. And so, when a business is going through all sorts of issues, it is rarely isolated to some little problem. It is affecting big relationships in the business, big relationships outside the business, the finances, and then of course, your mindset emotionally and psychologically. The toxicity associated with these sorts of problems significantly affects a business owner’s optimism and energy to grow a company and hope in making the company better, and the hope needed to pass on to employees the positive energy of working in a business. So sometimes you even find employees start leaving because of the problems, or you start firing employees because there are so many problems and employees, there are misunderstandings that occur.
Steps to Address Legal Challenges
What is a business owner to do when faced with these problems? Well, this is not easy to do, but step number one is to try to get a little space from them and think through who are the experts I need to get into my corner so that I can start solving these problems strategically and methodically, and objectively. When I have had legal trouble, I hire attorneys, even though I am an attorney. Why? Because you are too close to the problem. When you were enveloped in it, you need somebody who is both an expert and objective to take a look at it. So my best advice for business owners who are going through chaos or all sorts of legal problems is to sit down with an attorney who understands the complexities of this area of law and can help you put together a customized plan of attack, prioritizing items based on urgency and importance, and methodically going through and working out a solution.
Seeking Help from Turnaround Experts
If you are looking for an attorney in this area, there is a term for it, and it is called a turnaround attorney. In other words, when a business is going through chaos, there are turnaround experts who will come into a business and are familiar with how to solve chaos and get clarity and put together a plan for the business to turn around and get out of the problems it is facing. So consider looking for a turnaround expert or a turnaround attorney. I do this regularly with businesses, and then that turnaround expert can identify what legal options would be best available to help. Maybe it is bankruptcy. Maybe it is settlement negotiations. Maybe it is litigation.
Tailoring Solutions to Your Specific Situation
So, I could at this point try to get into analyzing some of the subject matter that was brought up in this question, but I think I would probably be doing the person who asked the question a disservice because, in order to put together a solution, the expert really needs to spend time understanding the circumstances and the law in the states where the problems exist and then put together a plan of action.
For example, some states have laws that protect you from certain sorts of defamation, whereas other states don’t provide the same level of protection, and there are other aspects here where stalking, for example, might be criminal in one state and might not have significant consequences in another state. There might be free speech rights that come into play here. So there are a lot of different legal pieces to weigh. But I think when a business owner is facing a significant legal crisis that threatens the business, whether that be a crisis from within, with partners, or from people on the outside, the best bet is to go consult with an attorney and talk through the details there.
I wish I could give you more advice, like here is exactly what to do, but I think I would be doing you a disservice by being overly generic and overly broad when what you need when you are going through a crisis is somebody who will take the time to understand the circumstances and put together a specific plan to turn around the business and get you out of it and make sure that you understand all of the risks associated with the different aspects of the legal problems and decide which risks you are willing to accept and which you are not. And then, of course, consider the costs associated with the different solutions you identify.
Conclusion
Alright, if you would like to get notified about the next live session, you are welcome to subscribe to the Aaron Hall attorney YouTube channel. You are welcome to subscribe to our little reminder email system at aaronhall.com/free. You can also sign up and follow us on other social media sites. I am Aaron Hall, an attorney for business owners and entrepreneurial companies. It was a pleasure talking with you today and answering your questions from an educational perspective.
As I always say, before you rely on any of this, consult with an attorney. It is my hope that you use these questions to identify topics and questions to bring up with your attorney. Until the next live session, I hope you are doing well. Take care.