Got legal questions? We do! So we invited attorney and online legal expert Danielle Liss to join us for the 72nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We’ve had this episode penciled in on our list for a long time—partly because we know so many copywriters have big questions about legal issues (and often don’t have the cash to ask an attorney for help). Hopefully this podcast answers a few of those questions. We talked to Danielle about:

•  how she went from working in construction law to helping online entrepreneurs with legal needs

•  the legal documents all copywriters need to have in place (her checklist)

•  what you need to know about choosing a business entity (in the U.S.)

•  the critical reason you want to choose an entity besides sole proprietor

•  what you need to know about contracts and why you should ALWAYS use them

•  what every contract you sign MUST have

•  should you include your contract with your proposal or keep them separate?

•  what could happen if you work without a contract (the nightmare scenario)

•  what you should do contract-wise on a second or third project with a client (think MSA)

•  why you probably don’t need to worry about changes to your contract

•  the three things you need to include in your website terms and conditions

We also talked about what you should expect to pay for legal help and Danielle gave us the lowdown on copyrights—yes, copyright, not copywrite ; ) . She also gives a bit of counsel about when you can use ™, ®, or a service mark, and how to handle conflicts and breaches of contracts. This episode is loaded with need-to-know information that will help you protect your copywriting business. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.

 

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Sponsor: TCC IRL

Dubsado

FitFluencial

LegalZoom

USPTO website

Hashtag-legal.com

Kira’s website

Rob’s website

The Copywriter Club Facebook Group

Intro: Content (for now)

Outro: Gravity

Full Transcript:

Kira:What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club podcast.

Rob: You’re invited to join the Club for episode 72 as we chat with attorney, marketing expert, and co-founder of Hashtag Legal, Danielle Liss, about what copywriters need to know when it comes to the law, choosing the right business entity, documents we need to protect ourselves, and avoiding the common mistakes online business owners make again and again.

Kira: Welcome, Danielle!

Rob: Hey Danielle.

Danielle: Thank you so much for having me, I’m really excited to be here.

Kira: Yeah, we’re excited to have you, and, we—we just need this conversation desperately! Even as I’m listening to the intro, I’m like, I need to know all of this! So, I’m really looking forward to it.

Rob: It’s funny that it’s taken this long to get here too…

Kira: I know!

Rob: …because when we first started the podcast, we made a list of everybody we wanted to talk to, and one of the line items was an attorney. We wanted to talk to an attorney, and yeah. Now we’re seventy-two episodes in...

Kira: Right!

Rob: So it’s about time.

Danielle: Well I am very glad to be the one to talk with everybody.

Kira: Yes, great. So why don’t we start with your story, and I’m really curious how you ended up working in influencer marketing and ultimately creating Hashtag Legal.

Danielle: Absolutely. When I graduated from law school, I went into litigation. And I live in Las Vegas, and I did a lot of construction law. Let’s just say that’s not exactly how my brain works. So, it was never a great fit because I just didn’t have the passion that I needed to spend all day fighting about drywall. And...

Kira: Laughs.

Danielle: And there are people who do; I love them for it,...