Posted on June 17, 2017 in Business Law

Is your small business healthy when it comes to legal risks and vulnerabilities? It can be exciting to start a small business in Oakbrook Terrace and to begin the process of structuring your business and hiring employees, but many legal complications can arise. When most small business owners hear the term “audit,” they think of a tax audit or an accounting audit. Legal audits are very different. Legal audits refer to a small business owner hiring a DuPage County business law attorney who can review the operations of your business to determine whether you are likely to encounter any legal problems.

When you run a small business, there are already many complicating matters that arise on a daily or weekly basis concerning your company. You should not have the extra anxiety of worrying about whether your business is at risk of a legal issue. A business lawyer in Oakbrook Terrace with experience assisting Muslim small business owners can speak with you today.

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 Posted on May 31, 2017 in Business Law

Do you have a business in DuPage County and are considering entering into a strategic partnership? Or are you thinking about forming a startup company in the Oakbrook Terrace area and wondering how you can have a mutually beneficial relationship with another small business or company? Strategic partnerships are agreements between two companies that are not in competition with one another, and they are agreements that benefit both companies. If you are looking to grow your company, strategic partnerships can help in a number of ways — from issues surrounding marketing to supply chains to technology.

Strategic partnerships are one way that you can expand, and it is important to learn more about strategic partnerships and, ultimately, how you should structure the deal.

Small Businesses and Strategic Partnership Agreements

The way you structure your strategic partnership agreement will depend upon the type of business you operate, and the way in which you want to expand your company. One of the more common types of strategic partnership agreements are marketing partnerships. Strategic marketing partnerships are especially useful for smaller businesses that offer a limited number of products and/or services. By partnering with a marketing company, you can work with a company that will refer others to your products and services, while the marketing company will also gain sales for your services or product by developing company-specific marketing techniques. The two companies, then, can share in the profits. In strategic marketing partnerships, it is important to work with a company that can market your products either to a shared customer based, or to a new set of consumers.

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 Posted on May 17, 2017 in Business Law

If you are starting a small business in DuPage County or are thinking about expanding your current business to include employees beyond yourself, you are likely to have many questions about the steps you need to take in order to hire new employees. For instance, what kind of information do you need to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) before you can hire new employees? What information will you need to obtain from your new employees in order to hire them legally and to withhold federal income taxes from their paychecks? What kinds of information are you required by law to provide to new employees?

At Farooqi & Husain Law Office, we are committed to helping members of the Muslim community in DuPage County create and expand their small businesses, and a DuPage County business law attorney at our firm can answer all of your questions about hiring new employees. In the meantime, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) provides helpful tips for creating a checklist for any small business owner who is planning to hire new employees.

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 Posted on April 29, 2017 in Business Law

Do you have a business in DuPage County? Do you work with an off-site bookkeeping service? Many Muslim small business owners in Oakbrook Terrace and nearby communities want to ensure the success and profitability of their businesses, and hiring an off-site bookkeeping service is an effective way to save on your taxes, have cleaner books, and ultimately to assess how the business is doing.

At Farooqi & Husain Law Office, our dedicated DuPage County business lawyers have years of experience assisting members of the Muslim community and helping our clients to maintain strong businesses. If you have questions about why you should hire an off-site bookkeeping service, an experienced DuPage County business lawyer can speak with you today.

Dealing with Complicated Business Issues

For many small business owners in DuPage County, their companies likely have numerous complicated business issues to an extent that they do not realize. As an article in Entrepreneur explains, business owners “who hire accounting help usually discover they weren’t doing nearly as well on their own as they thought they were.” To be sure, in the early stages of a business, many business owners attempt to keep their own books and in some cases to handle their own taxes. What many business owners do not realize is that they can benefit immensely from working with an off-site professional.

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 Posted on April 14, 2017 in Business Law

When you have a small business in Oakbrook Terrace, it is extremely important to have an accountant and a lawyer on your side. While an accountant can sometimes answer questions that might seem relevant for your attorney and vice versa, both accountants and lawyers can help with specific tasks related to the finances and day-to-day running of your business.

For many members of the Muslim community in DuPage County who form small businesses, you should understand the importance of working with an accountant and a business law attorney. At Farooqi & Husain Law Office, we have been serving Muslim clients in Oakbrook Terrace for years and can provide you with some helpful information to get you started.

Choosing a Small Business Structure

One of the first steps of starting a small business likely will require the expertise of both an accountant and a lawyer. Your accountant can help you to think through various tax implications of your business structure, for instance, while your attorney can help you to consider various legal issues that may arise in each type of business structure. Examples of business structures include the following:

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 Posted on March 22, 2017 in Family Law

Are you considering adoption in DuPage County? Adoptions can be extremely complicated, and as such, it is important to speak with an experienced DuPage County family law attorney. Yet just because adoption is complicated does not mean that this is not a valuable route to pursue. Indeed, according to a fact sheet from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), more than 15,000 children have been adopted in Illinois in the last decade, allowing those children to have a permanent home while also providing the adoptive parents with the same rights and responsibilities as biological parents.

What are some common issues surrounding adoption in Illinois with which you should familiarize yourself?

Who Can Adopt a Child in Illinois?

Adoptions in DuPage County are governed by the Illinois Adoption Act (750 ILCS 50/). Under this statute, a person may be eligible to adopt a child if they meet the following requirements:

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 Posted on March 08, 2017 in Estate Planning

When you are considering whether you need to make a will, it is important to think carefully about your assets and where you want them to go when you are no longer living. For most members of the Muslim community in DuPage County, it is extremely important to make a will. If you do not have a will at the time of death, then your assets will be distributed according to Illinois intestacy laws.

These laws are complicated, and they can prevent your assets from being distributed according to your wishes. While many people assume they only need to make a will if they have real property, any assets at all can be subject to Illinois intestacy laws at the time of death. By making a will, however, you can ensure that your property goes to the parties to whom you planned to leave it—whether it is your children or a neighborhood nonprofit foundation.

Do You Have Intended Beneficiaries Who Are Not Close Family Members?

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 Posted on February 28, 2017 in Family Law

If you are in the process of getting divorced in Oakbrook Terrace, you already may know about changes to Illinois family laws regarding child support. In brief, under Illinois law (750 ILCS 5/), child support has been determined based on a percentage-based model (or formula) that looks at the number of children for whom support is awarded, and the payor and payee parents are determined by who has primary physical custody of the child. For each child, a certain percentage of the payor parent’s income is the amount of child support awarded. However, as you may know, there have been a number of changes to family and divorce law in Illinois over the last year or so, and one of those changes concerns child custody. Parents are no longer awarded legal and/or physical custody, but instead, those terms have been replaced with “parental responsibilities” and “parenting time.”

Why is this important for child support? Another major change to the law concerns how child support is determined, and the new law will take effect in July 2017. When July 2017 rolls around, how will “parenting time” have an impact on the amount of child support paid?

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 Posted on February 18, 2017 in Islamic Divorce

At Farooqi & Husain Law Office, we have been assisting clients for years with a wide variety of family law matters, and we are committed to helping members of the Muslim community in DuPage County who have questions about filing for divorce and need representation. We understand how difficult a divorce can be even under the best circumstances, and we also know how important it is that your voice and needs be heard. In DuPage County, the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (750 ILCS 5/) governs most aspects of divorce, including property division, spousal maintenance, and child custody. We regularly represent clients who have concerns about property division and finances, as well as those whose primary concerns deal with the allocation of parental responsibilities and other matters involving your children.

In DuPage County, the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (750 ILCS 5/) governs most aspects of divorce, including property division, spousal maintenance, and child custody. We regularly represent clients who have concerns about property division and finances, as well as those whose primary concerns deal with the allocation of parental responsibilities and other matters involving your children.

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 Posted on February 01, 2017 in Family Law

When you are served with divorce papers in DuPage County, you are likely to have many questions about the next stages of the Illinois divorce process and how they will impact you. Whenever you are going through a divorce, it is extremely important to have an experienced DuPage County divorce attorney on your side. At Farooqi & Husain Law Office, we have years of experience helping members of the Muslim community in Oakbrook Terrace and surrounding areas, and we can speak with you about your case today.

In the meantime, it is a good idea to have a basic understanding of the steps that will follow after you have been served with divorce papers in Illinois.

Filing a Written Response to the Petition for Divorce

If you were served with divorce papers, this means that your spouse already has filed a petition for dissolution of marriage, which is required to begin the process of divorce under the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (IMDMA). The IMDMA recently underwent some substantial changes, including the abolition of “grounds for divorce.” As such, the petition for dissolution of marriage filed by your spouse need not set forth any grounds for divorce under the way. Instead, Illinois is now what is known as a “no fault” state when it comes to divorce. This allows either spouse to file a petition for dissolution of marriage following a six-month period of living “separate and apart,” as long other specific requirements have been met.

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