10 business questions to ask your lawyer

My first blog post of the year is often about tech law predictions for the upcoming year. This year I’m listing some legal questions businesses should ask their lawyers in 2024.

1. Recent new laws require corporate minute books to include more information than before on shareholders and information about real estate ownership. Ask how those apply to you and what needs to be done to comply.

2. Ask if your creation or use of artificial intelligence has any legal, ethical, or risk issues that should be considered, and whether you should implement internal or external AI policies.

3. When signing up for an online or other service that uses AI to provide the services, ask what provisions you need in the contract to deal with AI-related issues.

4. Ask if you should consider having a chief ethical officer who is responsible for guiding the business on compliance and ethical issues regarding AI and other emerging technologies.

5. Ask when the CPPA that will replace PIPEDA might come into effect and what you will need to do differently. Privacy compliance is getting more prescriptive with significant penalties.

6. Ask what the several Ontario “working for workers” laws are and what you need to do to comply. Examples include electronic monitoring policies, adding rights for digital platform uses (such as Uber drivers), banning non-competition clauses, and requiring employers to provide more details about jobs before employees start.

7. Ask if your proposed trademark is something you can actually protect with a trademark registration before you get too far into a branding exercise. Trademark examiners now can deny the registration of trademarks that are not distinctive. Distinctive means the mark can’t in any way be connected to the product or service. Many businesses are surprised at what they can’t register.

8. Ask if you really own the intellectual property you think you own. If you engage a third party to create something without the right ownership language, you may not own it.

9. Ask your lawyer if any property you have ownership of on behalf of others, or that others might have rights to, falls under the CRA’s new reporting requirements for trusts, including undocumented bare trusts.

10. If you have customers in Quebec, ask about Quebec compliance issues such as privacy and language. You may need advice from Quebec counsel to comply.

David Canton is a business lawyer and trademark agent at Harrison Pensa with a practice focusing on technology, privacy law, technology companies and intellectual property. Connect with David on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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