Running your not-for-profit
Running your not-for-profit
Whether you are establishing a new charity or not-for-profit, ensuring compliance with complex regulations or responding to a corporate crisis, BAL Lawyers can partner with you.
Our Business and Corporate Lawyers have significant professional experience and an understanding of how not-for-profit organsiations work to enable them to deliver commercial strategies and alternative options in structuring to ensure your charitable or business activities can be delivered effectively. We work with your taxation and accounting advisors to ensure your transactions run smoothly and achieve the desired and most beneficial outcome for your organisation.
We can assist in all aspects of your day-to-day business from advising and preparing terms of trade, advising on intellectual property and privacy law, preparing and reviewing contracts and other transactional and governance documents that ensure your rights are protected, and representing your best interests in the event of a contractual dispute.
Contracts
Have you considered how your not-for-profit would be impacted should your critical relationships falter? Most business owners, at the time of contracting, are keen to progress the commercial relationship and less likely to consider the consequences of a dispute. When drafting contracts, our team focuses on ensuring every clause is clear and concise. We set practical and measurable milestones in the delivery of services and develop a detailed understanding of project characteristics and risks as an essential pre-condition to determining appropriate contract structures and terms.
Our expertise includes contract administration, drafting simple and complex contracts, and providing advice and training on contract management, including providing strategic advice in relation to any disputes that arise. The team at BAL can also assist with contract review (B2B and B2G, employment, property, business and licensing contracts) and ensure contracts are explained in plain English so you know exactly what you are signing – before you sign it.
Insurance & liability
BAL Lawyers has a comprehensive knowledge of the insurance industry and has tailored a best practice approach towards insurance law.
Our Insurance Lawyers practice in corporate and commercial insurance, and can also provide advice on public liability, financial risks and personal liability. In addition to advisory services, BAL Lawyers also acts in numerous claims involving insurers, ranging from personal injury and property destruction matters through to professional indemnity matters.
We understand the importance of managing client expectations, ensuring that our clients are protected from liability and that all parties work towards the successful outcome of commercial transactions.
Information & privacy
It is important to protect your organisation by complying with all relevant privacy legislation. Our Business and Corporate team specialise in information and privacy law and can advise on all aspects of your not-for-profit relating to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), as well as other specific State and Territory legislative frameworks that may apply within your sector.
While compliance can be complicated, our Information and Privacy Lawyers can help you understand how the Privacy Act and the APPs relate to your not-for-profit, identify any changes you may need to make to ensure you are compliant and advise on best practice responses to data and privacy breaches. Our team understands how privacy applies to commercial, social, and digital aspects of your service delivery and will work with you to create a tailored approach to privacy and provide you with all the relevant policies required for your organisation.
Intellectual property
Managing and protecting an organisation’s intellectual property (IP) can be critical to its success. Understanding what is in your IP asset pool can help you better use those assets in your business planning and strategy. Ensuring that your idea, product or service remains protected is essential to effective commercialisation. Similarly, effective management of IP rights that are licensed or used by your organisation can help avoid disputes and allow you to focus on your core charitable activities and service delivery.
Our Business and Corporate team has significant experience in IP law and developing IP protection strategies to protect your rights across the spectrum. Our expertise includes trade marks, copyright, confidentiality, privacy, online content, data protection, compliance and infringement litigation. We can assist you if your IP has been misused or infringed upon.
Finance
We have an established finance and securities team with expertise in preparing loan and security transaction documents and capital raising documents, should you be engaged in banking, business finance and trust arrangements. We understand that significant portions of a not-for-profit’s funding can come from Commonwealth and State and Territory Government grants, we can advise on your rights and obligations under your funding agreements to ensure you can comply with your obligations to Government.
Corporate Governance
Robust corporate governance practices are a crucial requirement for any not-for-profit, ensuring compliance with fundamental legal obligations and facilitating effective management and oversight of the not-for-profit’s business operations.
Our Business & Corporate lawyers have extensive experience and broad expertise across the full range of corporate governance matters. We have advised businesses of all sizes, including the boards and executive management teams of many public and proprietary companies, not-for-profits and charities. We help organisations to meet their obligations under a range of legal and regulatory frameworks, as well as their core duties to their members.