Caveat Emptor – Legal Document Preparers
In my practice representing nonprofit and tax-exempt organizations, there are often themes that emerge. Over the last few weeks I have had a spate of calls from would be nonprofits that paid either a nonprofit start-up consultant or a document preparation company to form their nonprofit and handle their IRS filings. In each case, the work product that made it to my office required substantially more work to fix than it would have taken to do properly the first time around. You get what you pay for, and sometimes, you pay dearly for what you get. Before hiring someone to help you with the legal and tax aspects of starting a nonprofit, make sure they are licensed to provide the type of assistance they are offering, have specific experience representing nonprofits, and are in fact representing you rather than helping you to commit malpractice on yourself.
