Kansas City Law Firm Van Osdol & Magruder Implements Client Advantage Program For Local Kansas City Businesses to Provide Annual Required Services for a Flat Rate
Thursday, January 5th, 2012
By Bob Beachy, president of Van Osdol & Magruder
Kansas City law firm, Van Osdol & Magruder recently developed the Client Advantage Program to help local businesses comply with organizational formalities such as filing annual report documents and maintaining annual meetings and minutes.
The Client Advantage Program was created to satisfy these annual necessities in a simpler streamlined way. For a flat fee of $350, clients get three services: (1) An annual meeting with an attorney; (2) Preparation of annual minutes/consents and filing of the Annual Registration Reports; and (3) Registered Agent services.
To find out more about this program or to schedule an appointment, call 816-421-0644.
Kansas City Law Firm Van Osdol & Magruder Encourages Entrepreneurs, Business Owners & CMOs To Protect Intellectual Property
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
By Bob Beachy, president of Van Osdol & Magruder
When entrepreneurs set out to develop the next “big idea,” protecting the intellectual property behind that idea may be the last thing on their mind. Additionally, Van Osdol & Magruder, The Biggest Little Law Firm® in Kansas City, has found that an entrepreneur may inadvertently prevent that new idea from ever seeing the light of day due to innocent mistakes. With proper precautions and careful structuring, one of the most valuable assets in that new business, its intellectual property, may be enhanced and protected.
Intellectual property laws come into play in several important areas. From the choice of a company or product name, and ensuring that such name doesn’t violate the intellectual property rights of someone else, to ensuring proper filings are made to protect that name, entrepreneurs benefit from talking to an attorney well-versed in trademark law to make sure the simple choice of a name doesn’t cause more harm than good. New businesses need to also protect company logos, internet domain names, trade dress and marks, email addresses and patentable inventions. Careful thought should be given to whether the business or the business owner will actually own those assets.
It is simple to inadvertently diminish the value of a company’s intellectual property. For example, moonlighting programmers working on new ideas after hours might be inadvertently contributing that work to their employer. New companies that hire contractors may neglect to put proper language in their agreements to ensure that what is being developed by those contractors is owned by the company. A company may fail to put in adequate safeguards to ensure its ideas are not carelessly disclosed to the world.
Prior to investing too much time and effort in a new idea, it is a good idea to make sure that the laws of intellectual property are working in the new business owner’s favor. By doing an early analysis and ensuring the legal framework is in place, a new company can make sure that its intellectual property enhances the company’s growth.
VOMER Entrepreneurial Law Supports Kansas City Startups
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
By Bob Beachy, president of Van Osdol & Magruder
Duncan McQueen
Van Osdol & Magruder, The Biggest Little Law Firm® in Kansas City, has created a new internal practice group to aid Kansas City entrepreneurs and startups. The practice group, known as VOMER Entrepreneurial Law, is already on the move providing free legal seminars and affordable legal services to startups in their earliest stages, as well as expert legal counseling to entrepreneurs and startups that are closer to investment rounds. While many attorneys feel entrepreneurial law is the same as general business law, this practice group understands there are many differences and an attorney without the proper training and experience can end up causing many problems for entrepreneurs and startups as well as charging excessive fees in the process.
Christopher S. Brown
The entrepreneurial practice group insists on providing timely, relevant and experienced advice to entrepreneurs and startups so they can prevent the legal problems most entrepreneurs encounter. The practice group, lead by David Kim, and including Duncan McQueen and Chris Brown, is avoiding the traditional law firm approach and is assisting entrepreneurs with a full range of services, in keeping with the overall firm philosophy. The group can assist local entrepreneurs with every aspect of their startups from initial formation to obtaining financing, but can also connect the startups with relevant resources such as incubators, accountants, advisors and mentors, graphic designers and programmers, as well as connections to financing through loans, angel investors and venture capitalists.
David Kim
Joshua C. Rowland, the executive director of Lead Ventures, a local business accelerator and incubator, has said that VOMER Entrepreneurial Law “demonstrates the commitment and sensitivity to small business growth that we were looking for in a strategic partner.” Further, Rowland highlights that business startups need just-in-time resources which this practice group is poised to offer, and not another to do list.
VOMER Entrepreneurial Law can provide expert legal counseling to just about any entrepreneur – from the smallest one person operation to the full size startup about to scale up. Feel free to contact David, Duncan, Chris or any other member of the firm with any questions you may have.
Kansas City, Mo. Mayor Appoints Small Business Committee
Friday, June 17th, 2011
Posted by Bob Beachy
Here is a recent news article from Thinking Bigger Business Magazine regarding Mayor James establishing a special committee on small business. The committee will focus on cutting red tape and streamlining city services related to doing business in Kansas City, Mo. James has appointed Councilman Scott Taylor to chair the committee, which will include Councilman Jermaine Reed, Councilman Scott Wagner and Councilwoman Cindy Circo.
Google will extend ultra-fast Internet project to Kansas City, Mo.
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011
Posted By:Shawn Stogsdill
Van Osdol & Magruder P.C. would like to congratulate Kansas City, Mo. for being selected to collaborate with Google on the one-gigabit-per-second, ultra-high speed, fiber-to-the-home broadband network.
According to an article from the Kansas City Business Journal, “Kansas City will get hooked up to the much-touted Google Inc. fiber-optic network that previously was announced for Kansas City, Kan., officials announced Tuesday.”
Google will extend ultra-fast Internet project to Kansas City, Mo.
New Kansas City Mayor Sly James held a Tuesday morning announcement at Union Station to explain the Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) news, which he said makes the city the most attractive on the planet to entrepreneurs and is a “huge win for the entire region.” The service — more than 100 times faster than what’s available to most Americans — will launch early next year, pending City Council approvals; the cities on either side of the Missouri-Kansas state line are the only two slated for the initiative.
“It’s kind of hard to overstate how big this announcement is to our future,” James said. “As a result of this announcement, we have become the most attractive city to entrepreneurs. Think about it — in the next year, our city and region (are) going to have the fastest Internet connection in the world.”
Officials credited Kansas City Power & Light, the first investor-owned utility to join in on such a project, as playing a key role in attracting Google’s efforts. KCP&L is owned by Kansas City-based Great Plains Energy Inc. (NYSE: GXP).
KCP&L will offer Google access to its poles, infrastructure and existing fiber network to get Kansas City customers connected. The agreement means significantly lower costs and rollout time.
“Rather than having to build out their own delivery system, this innovative agreement will allow Google and KCP&L to work together to deploy service over KCP&L’s existing infrastructure, significantly reducing costs as well as time for engineering, permitting and construction,” said Mike Chesser, chairman and CEO of Great Plains and KCP&L.
James also said “tireless efforts” by Mayor Pro Tem Cindy Circo helped land the project.
“Our goal was to find a location where we could build efficiently, make an impact on the community, and develop working partnerships with the local government, utility and community organizations,” Google said on its website about the project. “We believe we’ve found this in both Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo.”
Google’s vice president for Access Services, Milo Medin, made the official announcement Tuesday in Kansas City.
“Just a few weeks ago, when we announced that we would bring our first ultra-high-speed network to Kansas City, Kan., I promised it would be the start and not the end of our efforts,” Medin said. “We love this market and wanted to deploy our service in the broader region and have been working to make that a reality.”
Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., said that it has not finalized pricing for the service but that it will be “competitive” with what consumers now pay for Internet access.
The news comes a month and a half after Google made its announcement in Kansas City, Kan. The network there is scheduled to be up and running in early 2012, and that announcement had fueled speculation that the network would extend across the state line.
The Google Fiber for Communities project creates a 1-gigabit-per-second, fiber-to-the-home broadband network that could have broad implications for business and entrepreneurial efforts.
Kansas City technology lawyer Greg Kratofil Jr. of Polsinelli Shughart PC said that the news is a game-changer for the region but that the tool provided by Google must be turned into economic development.
“Our challenge — and opportunity — is to take this advantage we will have in Kansas City and create economic development,” he said. “We will do this by supporting technology entrepreneurs with capital, programs and government as a partner.”
The tech community is ready, but the entire community should get engaged, he said.
“I was hoping it wouldn’t be too long until it came into Kansas City, Mo.,” Missouri Rep. Mike Talboy, D-Kansas City, said of the news. “I’m just happy they got it done.”
Kansas City was among about 1,100 U.S. cities to apply for the Google project last year. Early this year, Kansas City was contacted by Google, and officials were involved with meetings and negotiations leading up to the Tuesday announcement.