Business Lawyer Consultation: Documents to Prepare

Key takeaways

• Start with the business decision: review, drafting, negotiation, recovery, defence, filing, settlement or urgent protection.
• Give the lawyer the entity and authority picture before asking for advice on a signature, dispute or transaction.
• Keep contracts and communications complete; isolated screenshots and rewritten chronologies can hide context.
• Separate facts, assumptions, financial exposure and the outcome the business wants.

1. Write the consultation brief first

Use one page to identify:

• the entity’s legal name, registration number and trading name;
• the people or organisations involved and their roles;
• the business objective and the decision that is due;
• the relevant contract, transaction, product, service or conduct;
• the important dates, amount at risk and operational impact;
• any regulator, court, customer, supplier, employee or investor involved; and
• the question you want answered in plain language.

Write “We need advice on whether to terminate and how to preserve supply” rather than “The supplier breached everything.” A lawyer can test a conclusion only when the underlying facts and documents are visible. If there are several issues, number them and say which one is urgent.

2. Prove who can instruct the firm

Collect the current company profile, Memorandum of Incorporation and amendments, director and shareholder information, securities or member register where relevant, beneficial-ownership information that the company is entitled or required to provide, and the registered address. Add the board or shareholder resolution, delegation, power of attorney or mandate that authorises the instruction when one is required.

This pack is especially important when the proposed advice concerns a settlement, borrowing, sale of assets, share transfer, litigation, employment decision or a transaction that may require a formal approval. Identify conflicts: a director may have a personal interest, a shareholder may be instructing on a company dispute, or an employee may not be authorised to disclose the company’s records.

Do not send identity documents or beneficial-owner material to an unverified address. Confirm the practitioner or firm through the Legal Practice Council’s current search route, use the firm’s secure intake process and ask what verification is needed before confidential information is shared.

3. Assemble the core transaction or dispute file

Give the lawyer the signed agreement and every material version, not only the page you believe was broken. Depending on the matter, include:

• proposals, term sheets, quotations, purchase orders and specifications;
• amendments, renewals, schedules, service levels, warranties and policies;
• invoices, statements, delivery records, acceptance records and proof of payment;
• emails, messages, meeting notes, call summaries and relevant attachments;
• complaints, defect reports, inspection records and mitigation steps;
• demand letters, notices, settlement offers, summonses or regulator correspondence; and
• related agreements such as guarantees, leases, finance documents, licences or confidentiality terms.

Name the source and date of each file. Preserve the native email or message export where possible. A PDF made for convenience is a working copy, not a replacement for the source message or attachment.

4. Build a chronology and obligation map

Create a table with one row per material event. Useful columns are:

Add a second table for the obligations that matter: who had to do what, by when, under which clause or decision, what was actually done, and what remains disputed. Include events that went well. A complete history helps counsel distinguish a missed condition from a later variation and a disputed fact from an agreed one.

5. Quantify exposure without pretending it is a legal conclusion

Prepare a money schedule showing invoice amount, payment date, credit or refund, replacement cost, delay cost, lost revenue, interest or penalty claimed, professional fee already incurred and the calculation source. State which figures are confirmed, estimated or still being investigated.

Add non-financial exposure: customer or employee impact, service interruption, data or IP risk, reputational concern, insurance notice, regulatory reporting, tender deadline or risk that a transaction will close before advice. Do not present an untested loss estimate as an entitlement. Ask the lawyer which evidence would support or challenge each category.

6. Add the right specialist module

Do not send every business record to every firm. Add only the module that fits the issue:

• Company governance: MOI, resolutions, minutes, registers, director communications and conflict disclosures.
• Contract or supplier matter: agreement versions, specifications, performance records, invoices, notices and proposed remedy.
• Business sale, investment or funding: term sheet, due-diligence list, valuation assumptions, approvals, financing and closing conditions.
• Employment overlap: employment terms, policy, disciplinary record, payroll impact and any CCMA or bargaining-council date; separate employee personal information and share it only through an appropriate process.
• Property or lease: lease, schedules, rent ledger, inspection record, notices, permits and occupation or handover facts.
• IP, privacy or technology: ownership and licence chain, source or design files, access logs, data map, incident timeline and takedown or regulator correspondence.
• Tax, competition or sector regulation: the relevant return, filing, regulator letter, market or conduct record and the deadline—not an entire unrelated accounting archive.

The firm may need another specialist or an expert. Record that possibility without assuming the first consultation includes that work.

7. Preserve electronic records and confidentiality

Keep the source mailbox, message export, document version, spreadsheet formula and system record where practical. Use a read-only original folder and a working folder for annotations. Maintain an index that says who supplied each record and when.

Do not delete inconvenient messages, edit a PDF and call it original, backdate a note, or ask staff to “clean up” a timeline. Do not forward legal advice to a broad internal list before asking how confidentiality and privilege should be managed. Legal professional privilege, confidentiality and a company’s own information-security duties depend on the facts and the way material is handled.

Use a secure firm portal or the method the firm gives you. Redact unrelated personal identifiers only after confirming that the lawyer does not need the original. A data room link is not permission to upload every employee, customer or health record.

8. State the commercial instructions

At the end of the brief, record:

1. the action the business is considering;
2. the risk it is willing or unwilling to take;
3. the deadline and the event that creates it;
4. the person authorised to approve advice, settlement or spend;
5. the budget or fee questions; and
6. the people who should receive the lawyer’s communication.

Ask whether the first meeting covers a document review, oral advice, written advice, drafting, negotiation, a demand, a filing or only triage. Confirm the scope, exclusions, responsible practitioner, VAT and disbursements where applicable, communication route and what must be approved before additional work starts.

9. Know when the pack must move quickly

Contact a firm promptly if a summons, preservation notice, regulator request, retrenchment or disciplinary date, prescription concern, tender deadline, insolvency threat, threatened asset transfer, data incident, urgent interdict or closing date is approaching. Lead with the earliest date and attach the document that creates it.

Preparation guidance cannot extend a legal deadline. If the business is under investigation, facing a possible dawn raid or considering a communication that could worsen the dispute, obtain tailored advice before contacting the other party or destroying, moving or withholding records.

10. Use the pack in the meeting

Send an index, not a mystery archive. At the meeting, ask the lawyer to identify the facts that change the route, the documents still missing, the immediate risk control, the next owner action and the point at which the firm is formally instructed. Keep the advice note, engagement letter, fee terms, instructions and follow-up list together.

The live Commercial Law Checklist can do the detailed sorting. The Commercial Lawyers Guide explains how to compare commercial-law routes and firm capacity. This article is the handoff: it helps a business arrive with authority, facts, evidence and a decision ready for professional assessment.

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