Contracts

The next day Michael prepared to greet Cindy. Even though Cindy was hired as a lawyer; her position would probably be closer to a legal adviser. In the early stages of business, many companies would make typical mistakes like signing unfavorable contracts. They would face a wave of lawsuits from competitors and consumers. Without the help of a competent legal adviser, these newly created companies would get shut down.

Until now it was alright to not have a legal adviser because the business had not yet begun operations. However, next week the game will be released and the traders will start trading within two weeks. So it was imperative that he get legal protection. Michael was more concerned about the traders; he had some ideas on how to enforce security measures to prevent them from betraying him. However, he could really use advice from a professional.

Cindy pulled up at the front gate and was stopped by the security. Michael remembered that he needed to give her clearance and immediately called the security to let her in. Cindy drove a beaten down Ford Taurus. Honestly, Michael was taken back by Cindy's financial status. She was one of the top graduates from the best law school in the state. Cindy should be enjoying the fruits of her hard work in school; however, due to unfortunate circumstances, she was stuck in her current predicament.

Cindy's situation was a reminder to Michael that hard work did not guarantee success. There were giants in the world who could crush ordinary people and throw them back into the bottom of the pyramid. This insight only strengthened Michael's desire to be successful. He was around to save Cindy but who could save him from being crushed? He needed to keep working harder so that he can stand up for himself against the elites in society.

Michael greeted Cindy and gave her a tour of the whole office. He explained the two companies while introducing her to his business. After the tour, Michael had a meeting with Cindy.

" So what do you think?' He asked.

" Well, the security is amazing. I thought this was a secret military base at first. " Cindy pointed out. She was taken back by the attention to detail Michael had for security. She did not really understand why it was necessary; initially, she thought the company was doing something illegal, however, she abandoned that suspicion when Michael gave her the full tour. It certainly looked like a normal company on the inside.

" So do you have anything specific for me to do?" She was not really sure what to do at the company. Normally only large corporations hired in-house lawyers. And they usually had enough lawyers to form a team because they needed it. However, Michael's company was in its infancy so there really was not much need for a lawyer yet.

" Well, first I hope you can go through our employee handbooks and other employment documentation to make sure we did not leave any loopholes. After that, I need help drafting up contracts for the traders that I will train for the investment company. I don't want to waste time and money to train them, only to have them quit after they learned everything." Michael explained.

Cindy brainstormed for a while. " Well, you can have a normal employment contract and add a non-competing clause. This way your employees will not be able to work for a competitor or start their own investment firm. What do you think about that?"

Michael liked Cindy's idea. The non-competing clause sounded like the perfect thing to prevent traders from using him. However, he knew that there is always a caveat to legal contracts. For example, the traders could use personal accounts to trade from home. They could set up anonymous accounts to transfer money to in order to avoid trouble. Or they could even move to a country where the contract would not be recognized.

Ultimately, traders can make money from anywhere in the world as long as they had internet access. This is why he wanted to add an employment contract too. He figured the first year could be considered as training and did not expect much profits from the traders. However, the years after that should be enough for him to recover his investment.

" Let's do a 10-year contract. They can choose to leave anytime after five years but they cannot compete for the rest of the time. If they work for the full 10 years, then they can leave and do anything. That sounds like a fair deal. " Michael explained, 10 years should be enough for him to get his money's worth. Not to mention the traders will get a commission for successful trades. He figured that the talented traders would be millionaires after the first couple of years.

Cindy and Michael continued to iron out the details. She promised to have a draft by the end of the week for him to look over.

Michael was satisfied with Cindy's performance. Her work ethic was perhaps the most remarkable quality she had. He wanted to talk to Kevin and arrange for her to have a budget. He knew that it was best to get Cindy an assistant as part of her department. It would be stupid to have such an expensive employee waste time on clerical tasks that could be handled by a secretary. Furthermore, he needed to lay a foundation for a full-fledged legal team.

As Cindy walked out of Michael's office, she ran into Jennifer.

" Oh excuse me" Jennifer did not recognize the new face in Michael's office.

Jennifer walked into Michael's office while still watching Cindy who was walking out. "Michael, who is that?"

" She is our new lawyer. Cindy joined our team and will be helping us with our legal issues." Michael explained. Jennifer was not here when he gave Cindy the office tour.

" Oh, I already knew excellent lawyers that we could have hired. There was no need to hire a stranger." Jennifer explained. She was keeping in touch with the prominent lawyers in the business community and planned to draw one of them into Empyreal holdings.

" Well I am confident in Cindy's talents so we will be good for the near future. Perhaps we can talk with your contacts once we expand and need more lawyers." Michael replied. He knew that Jennifer had a tendency to micromanage everything. Honestly, that is why he hired her; he did not plan on spending the rest of his days running a business. However, it was not the time to hand the controls to Jennifer yet.

Michael needed to be there in the early stages to ensure that the business will be built according to his vision. Furthermore, he needed to ensure the loyalty of the founding employees so that he did not just own the company on paper. He wanted all the employees to know that he was the real boss.

Jennifer did not show any dissatisfaction with his answer and continued to give him a progress report while discussing some business decisions. Michael dived back into work.

The week went by quickly. The gaming team finished testing the game and setting up the servers. Capos was ready to make its debut. Michael could not wait to see the results of his hard work.