Acknowledgment
By accessing any of McCormick & O'Brien's forms and templates you understand and acknowledge the following:
By visiting our Website, we do not magically become your legal counsel. Before we accept a client, we do a conflict check and enter into an Engagement Letter. If you have not gone through both of these processes with one of our attorneys, you are not our client. Period. That means that you should not expect that information that you may provide (e.g., through posts on our forum) are subject to the attorney-client privilege. You should not send us confidential or proprietary information about your company, your inventions, your plans or your products.
The information and documents contained on the Founders' Corner are general, illustrative examples. Nothing you will find here is legal advice to you or your company (see point 1 above), or your specific facts and circumstances. After reviewing the information and documents contained on the Founders' Corner, you should have more questions than answers. If you do not, please go back and re-read whatever you were reading. Despite the frequent use of colloquialterms such as "standard," "typical," "market," and …our all-time favorite … "quick," the reality (and you should know this) is that legal issues need to be carefully considered and discussed much like all other complex and important matters in your life. Legal advice is a conversation, not a Google search. To emphasize this point, please check out this link to what we suspect is an excellent manual for surgeons. We do not know anyone who would practice surgery after just reading this manual. If you still do not believe us, try randomly calling a cardiologist, telling her you "have mild chest pains and some slight dizziness," and then asking her to e-mail or text you a "quick" prescription.
Also, legal standards, practices and precedents are continually evolving. We do not update every piece of information contained on the Founders' Corner on a continuous basis. At some point, some piece of information contained on the Founders' Corner will be less than current. That is why it is best to consider the information contained on the Founders' Corner as a starting point for a conversation with a qualified attorney (who can advise you on how general legal principles may apply to your particular situation), not a definitive answer in lieu of that conversation.
Laws can vary substantially by State. Depending on the particular issue the laws of, say, California, are not identical to the laws of, say, New York. Some of the materials contained on the Founders' Corner will identify that issue; others will not.
You should speak to someone before you sign a form agreement that you fill in with minimal information about yourself. Form documents are great, but they are a starting point, not an ending point. Do not just download and print out documents that you find here (or anywhere else) and then sign them. At best, you are agreeing to someone else's deal. At worst, you are creating a huge headache for yourself later. Please speak with an attorney (who need not be one of us) prior to signing anything.
We assume no responsibility for the accuracy, completeness or appropriateness of any third party information or opinions contained on or linked to our Website. We may, from time to time, include (or link to) third party (i.e., not our own) content on the Founders' Corner. Some third party content will express the opinions of others. Please do not confuse those opinions as legal advice to you (see points 1-4 above). We make every effort to make sure that all third party content is correct, accurate and (hopefully) useful, but we will miss some things. If you notice something on the Founders' Corner that you do not think should be there, please do not conclude that you have suffered from the intentional infliction of emotional distress and then try to go and sue us (sure, now you consult with a lawyer). Instead, please tell us.