Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, in conjunction with New York City’s Department of Small Business Services through a Volunteers of Legal Services referral, recently completed a pro bono project to develop free publicly available materials designed to help local entrepreneurs start new businesses in New York City. The project culminated in the creation of two informational guides, one for creating and one for properly establishing, small businesses, respectively titled Structuring Your Business and Registering Your Business.

The Structuring Your Business guide describes the principle choice of entity options for entrepreneurs seeking to start a new business and reviews the pros and cons and considerations relevant to each potential entity structure. The document covers both unincorporated and incorporated entity options and focuses specifically on sole proprietorships, general partnerships, limited partnerships, C corporations, S corporations, and limited liability companies.

The Registering Your Business guide describes the important filing and documentation requirements related to forming each of the various types of business entities, including the purpose, process and cost of the various filings. Topics covered including drafting and filing charter documents, choosing a business name or d/b/a, filing a Certificate of Assumed Name, publication requirements for limited partnerships and limited liability companies, drafting bylaws, operating agreements and partnership agreements, obtaining a Federal Employer Identification Number, and filing a Sales Tax Certificate of Authority and obtaining a sales tax identification number.

The information guides are part of the Department’s NYC Business Solutions project, which is a service established in 2005 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to provide free resources to New York City residents designed to help launch, grow and run small businesses. Neither guide is intended as a substitute for legal advice and both guides strongly encourage users to consult professional legal, financial and tax advisors when forming a corporation. Kelley Drye worked with the NYC Business Solutions team over a two-month period to develop and draft the two guides. The final documents, which are co-branded with Kelley Drye’s logo, went live on the NYC Business Solutions website in late May and are a part of the project’s extensive Business Library. According to NYC Business Solutions Senior Manager Jessica Lee, who spearheaded the project, “The documents Kelley Drye helped us finalize are going to be incredibly valuable in empowering our staff and our customers, which will result in businesses starting in New York City.”

The two guides can be found by clinking on the following links: Structuring Your Business and Registering Your Business.

Kelley Drye Provides Pro Bono Assistance in Drafting NYC Business Guides