                The Complete Small Business Legal Guide
                       Reviewed by Patrick Grote
    
    The wave of the future is small business. As more and more people
are cast aside by the traditional corporate model, many people will band
together to form more and more small businesses.
    The disappointment many people will feel when joining a small
business is the lack of resources typically available to a corporate
employee. The lack of resources is very evident in legal matters.
    Your typical corporation will have a full blown legal staff ready to
handle any legal situation or problem that arises. The legal department
is always involved in corporate decisions. Everything from contracts
with vendors to employee manuals. Even for a market research document,
the legal department should be involved.
    The Complete Small Business Legal Guide by Robert Friedman is your
guide through the maze of legal obstacles you will face in a small
business. With over 18 chapters of forms and advice, the book is sized
slightly larger than 8.5x11, which makes copying the forms enclosed in
the book very easy.
    Chapters cover a range of subjects from small business start up
tasks to protecting your small business in case of a partner's death.
Incredibly, the text is well laid out in two column fashion allowing for
easy highlighting and note taking.
    Almost every chapter includes a hint/tips section at the end that
explains when you need to use certain forms. This is a very good summary
for some of the larger chapters.
    The book has a few downsides in its entirety. The chapter of dealing
with the federal government via the IRS is a little skimpy.
Understanding that some forms change on a yearly basis, this is
understandable, but you would expect a little more hand holding
regarding how to fill out the general forms that will always be
available.
    Another area that could be improved is in form layout. Sometimes it
is hard to distinguish between a form and the book text. Had the forms
been perforated or labeled from the bottom or top, the reader wouldn't
have had a hard time distinguishing.
    The last improvement that could be made is to make the forms
available on diskette. With the advent of the personal computer this is
a requirement. You can easily make the text forms available in TXT or
WordPerfect files and the graphic files can be saved as TIFF files. This
way users with IBM compatibles, Macintoshes or PowerPCs can read the
forms.
    The book does distinguish itself from the rest of the "self-help"
business type books by being well documented and thorough. It is very
rare to see a book on this subject matter so meticulously documented on
each form.
    If you are in business for yourself or are part of a small business,
you owe it to yourself to purchase a copy of The Small Business Legal
Guide today!

                          Enterprise Dearborn
                       520 North Dearborn Street
                         Chicago, IL 60610-4354
                             (800) 982-2850
                        Author: Robert Friedman
                          ISBN: 0-79310-548-X

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