Jim Thomas

There is a time bomb in your company that you had better defuse. This is true whether you are employee or employer, because when it blows, both sides will be out lots of time and money, including plenty in attorney's fees. Not that we attorneys don't want your money; it's...

Leaving your day-to-day work and normal surroundings, even if only for two days 70 miles to the North, can be eye opening. Lessons learned, even important ones like the vitality of vision in successful communities, however, fade without persistent attention. Vision, and leaders who live the vision, were my takeaways...

Business is hard, but cancer in kids is harder. My Minor & Brown colleagues and I use legal skills to help remove roadblocks to business success. This week, however, we are also taking aim at cancer in kids. I've said it before: good businesses make money, but great businesses build...

Before my schedule bogged down in tinsel and year-end deadlines, I posted on a question that's been almost common: "I signed this lease before the economy tanked. How can I get out of it?" Typically, the business has contracted to a degree that it no longer needs, or simply can't...

The best time to think about getting out of a business lease is before you sign it. For the many companies with leases signed, perhaps too casually, before the economy tanked, that's little help. While their numbers are down from recent highs, businesses still come to my law firm looking...

If you are buying or selling a business, the first thing you'll do when your lawyer sends the draft contract, if you're like my clients, is check the purchase price. Then you'll make sure they spelled your name right. Then, if you are my client or a regular reader of...

My last post cautioned against fixating on purchase price to the detriment of risk allocation in the sale of a company. I believe sellers should leave closing without a nagging concern about keeping the purchase price just paid to them. This second part of my series on risk allocation in...

Purchase price is everything in business sale transactions. From the initial inquiries of a possible buyer to the heated battle over EBITDA in a letter of intent, purchase price is the primary, if not only, focus of many sellers of human-owned business. Investment bankers or business brokers who facilitate the...

I finished the 1990 Bob Cook Memorial Mount Evans Hill Climb on the wheel of that year's winner, Olympic road cycling gold medalist Alexi Grewal. The "hill" climbs 7000 feet in altitude in only 27 miles from Idaho Springs to 14,130 feet near the summit of Mount Evans, the mountain...

That firm is mine, Minor & Brown, and I'm not talking the spammy stuff everyone gets. This was sophisticated, carefully planned, big bucks ($250,000) crime. It didn't work, and the story of what happened and why it didn't work could be helpful to your business, and certainly should...

"One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a...

The opposite of too big to fail is not too small to matter. Growing our own did not become obsolete with medical marijuana. Home-grown, human-owned businesses of fewer than 50 employees make or break the Colorado economy. Luring much larger companies to relocate to Colorado, however, traditionally dominates our economic...

Colorado businesses that offer any kind of deferred incentives or compensation to their employees need to know that while hell has not frozen over, something almost as unusual has occurred. The IRS is giving you a second chance to be sure your plans qualify with Section 409A of the Internal...

Election Day is coming fast and some of you are already voting under Colorado's early voting, so I have a question for you. What do you do with the judges on the ballot? Skip 'em? Guess?

My work as a lawyer is all about effective negotiations, understandable contracts and landmine...

If you knew your customers had overpaid your business, you would return the excess payment without the customer having to ask for it, wouldn't you? It's the right thing to do; besides, it's also great customer service. Until recently, however, it was against the law for the State of Colorado...

This is the latest post in our series, Twitter Powerhouses, which focuses on the contributions of people who've helped to expand, influence, and redefine how we view social networking.

Ideas can be powerful, and when they are combined with a strong will and a sense of optimism, they can become...

Charities and other tax-exempt, non-profit businesses, though distinct from the human-owned for-profit companies I represent, do play a vital role in the humanity of our society. Since stewardship of our Colorado community is one of my concerns, I wanted to add my voice to the warnings to small non-profits that...

The slow recovery continues to press, and depress, America. In my world of the human-owned business, far from Wall Street, labor (organized and not) and management are suffering alike. The announcement of 67,000 new private sector jobs -- coming, as they always do, mostly from human-owned companies --...

Double dip or bumping-along-the-bottom to slow growth? The debate about the economy continues and I have no ability to predict the future, but I know a couple things that were true before the Great Recession that will certainly be true after: Demographics is one; entrepreneurs are usually terrible delegators is...

We all know about protecting our personal identities, and credit, from thieves, but the same issues and devastating outcomes impact businesses, too. ID thieves are targeting Colorado companies, Secretary of State Bernie Buescher and Attorney General John Suthers announced today as they rolled out a program to combat the problem...