Legal Question in Business Law in Wisconsin

Re: Business Liability

Your question brings up two real issues: can you protect yourselves from professional liability? and can you protect yourselves from general liability? Your professional liability would extend from the actual design work you do. So if you design something in a defective manner, you may have liability for not only the cost of the design, but to others that may get hurt by your design errors. It would be hard to protect you from such liability, but fortunately, there is usually professional liability insurance to cover such risk. How much you carry would be your concern. On the other note, you could have liability for general things occuring in your business, such as either of you having an accident while enroute to a jobsite. While the driver may have liability in any case, the other partner may not want to risk all he has because of the other partner's driving error. This could be insured, but the costs could be high to cover all such liability. Instead, it would be better to set up some sort of limited liability entity, such as a corporation or LLC. While these things seem simple to do, you really should consult with an attorney who understands all the issues surrounding such a matter before proceeding, since there are tax issues, the issues that can exist between the partners and many, many others to consider. Good luck! We would be glad to help if you are interested.