Most small business problems trace back to one of five missing documents. None of them are exotic, and none require a lawyer for the basic version. But the day you need one and do not have it is always the worst day to scramble.
Here are the five, in the order most businesses end up needing them.
1. An operating agreement (or partnership agreement)
If you formed an LLC, you have an operating agreement whether you wrote one or not. Most states have a default version baked into their statutes, and the default is rarely what you actually want. If you have business partners and no written agreement, you are operating on whatever your state legislature decided years ago.
What it covers: who owns what percentage, how profits get distributed, who can make decisions, what happens if someone wants out, what happens if someone dies, how disputes get resolved.
Why it matters: the day a partner wants to leave, the day a partner dies, or the day you disagree about a major decision, the agreement is the only thing standing between you and a lawsuit. Verbal agreements between business partners are nearly worthless in court.
Who can do it: a single-member operating agreement is template territory. A multi-member agreement with non-standard terms (vesting, buyout formulas, IP assignments) is worth $800 to $2,000 with a business attorney.
2. A standard NDA
Non-disclosure agreements get a bad reputation because of the cases where they are abused. Used correctly, they are basic infrastructure. Whenever you share a business idea with a developer, vendor, contractor, potential investor, or potential partner, an NDA is what stands between "they keep it confidential" and "they build a competing product."
What it covers: what information is confidential, how the other side can use it (or cannot), how long the obligation lasts, what happens if they violate it.
Why it matters: without an NDA in place at the time of disclosure, your only recourse if someone steals your idea is to prove they had a duty of confidentiality some other way. That is hard and expensive.
Who can do it: a standard mutual NDA is template work. $0 to $50 with a generator, $200 to $600 with an attorney drafting from scratch. Have one ready before the first meeting where you might share anything sensitive.
3. An independent contractor agreement (or employment agreement)
If you pay anyone to do work for you, you need this. The most common small business legal problem is not contracts gone wrong with customers. It is misclassification disputes, IP ownership fights, and severance disputes with people who did work for the business.
What it covers: scope of work, payment terms, who owns the work product (this matters enormously), confidentiality, classification as employee vs. contractor, what happens at termination.
Why it matters: in the U.S., if a contractor produces work for you without an "assignment of work product" clause, they may legally own what they made. Software, design, marketing copy, written content. Your business gets a license to use it but not ownership. When the contractor leaves and licenses it elsewhere, you find out the hard way.
Who can do it: template work for standard situations. $400 to $900 with an attorney for custom situations involving IP, equity, or unusual terms.
4. Privacy policy and terms of service
If your business has a website that collects any information (email signups, contact forms, e-commerce, analytics cookies), you need a privacy policy. In most U.S. states, you are also required by law to have one. California's CCPA, Virginia's VCDPA, Colorado's CPA, and a growing list of other state laws apply to almost any business that has customers in those states, which means almost every business.
What it covers: what data you collect, how you use it, who you share it with, how users can access or delete their data, contact info for privacy questions. Terms of service covers what people can and cannot do with your service, how disputes get handled, liability limits.
Why it matters: the cost of getting this wrong has gone up. State enforcement actions are real, class action lawyers are watching, and customer trust suffers when policies are missing or sloppy.
Who can do it: a basic privacy policy for a simple website is template territory. If you do anything beyond standard (sell user data, target children, operate in healthcare or finance), you need a lawyer. $500 to $1,500 for a custom set.
5. A buy-sell or shareholder agreement (if you have partners)
This is the one most owners regret not having until something goes wrong. A buy-sell agreement covers what happens when an owner exits the business, voluntarily or otherwise.
What it covers: the price formula for buying out a departing owner, who has the right to buy first, what happens on death or disability, what happens if an owner gets divorced (you do not want your partner's ex as a shareholder), restrictions on selling shares to outsiders.
Why it matters: without one, a departing owner can sell their stake to anyone. A deceased owner's stake passes through probate to their heirs. A divorcing owner's stake can become marital property subject to division. Each of these is a slow-motion disaster that takes months to unwind.
Who can do it: this is one of the few documents on the list where a lawyer is almost always worth it. Custom terms matter a lot, and the price formula in particular needs careful drafting. $1,500 to $5,000 with a business attorney.
What to do this week
If you have none of these, start in order. The operating agreement and NDA are the two highest-value, lowest-cost items. Most businesses can have both in place within a week using templates and basic editing.
Our DIY documents tool generates state-specific versions of items 1, 2, 3, and 4 in minutes. For item 5 and anything beyond the basic version of the others, find a business attorney through our match engine.