Corporate Lawyer in Melbourne, FL
Being in a corporation offers your company a lot of benefits you may not otherwise have. To keep your status as a corporation, there are certain formalities you must maintain. This includes holding regular meetings and keeping minutes of those meetings.
Annual Shareholders’ Meeting
Required by the state, your corporation has to hold an annual shareholders’ meeting. You should inform shareholders of the meeting between 10 and 60 days before it is set to be held, and you should give them the time, date and place. During your annual shareholders’ meeting, members of the Board of Directors can be elected or removed, shareholder initiatives can be voted on, transactions can be voted on and more.
Keeping Minutes
Someone at your meeting (typically your secretary) needs to take minutes so you have proof the meeting took place, and so the corporation can see the items that were voted on and discussed. Minutes can also be official documents in legal battles that may arise due to decisions made as a company. Some corporations compile a “minutes book” where all the minutes are held from every meeting.
Additional Meetings
Any time your corporation needs to make an important decision is a good time to hold a meeting and keep minutes. You don’t want to be held responsible for making the wrong decision or doing something that wasn’t fair or right. With other individuals at the meeting and carefully kept minutes, you’ll have the proof you need to show you have reason to let someone go. You’ll have the proof you need to show there was a unanimous vote about new policy implementation. These are things you don’t want to have to fight, and with proper measures taken on your part, you won’t have to.
How You Can Get Started
As a new corporation, you might be unsure of how to start and how to get your annual meetings up and running. A business lawyer can help you figure this out with examples of documents you can use to keep minutes, a list of items to have on your agenda and overall guidance on how it should be done. If you find yourself in a legal mess because you didn’t hold a meeting or didn’t have proper minutes taken, your lawyer can help you get out of it.
Contact a corporate lawyer in Melbourne, FL today to learn more about meetings and minutes. With legal help in your corner, your corporation can rise on the ladder of corporate success.
Call the Law Offices of Arcadier, Biggie & Wood for their insight into business law and meeting minutes.
