Counsel for the businesses that actually run the Inland Empire.

For most owner-operated Inland Empire businesses the LLC is the sensible default: liability protection, pass-through taxation and far lighter formalities than a corporation. A corporation makes sense where you intend to raise outside investment, issue stock, or where an S-corporation election produces a genuine payroll-tax advantage at your income level. Note that California charges an $800 minimum franchise tax on both, plus an additional gross-receipts fee on LLCs above certain revenue thresholds, so the choice has a real annual cost attached. It is worth an hour with a lawyer and an accountant together rather than a form-filling service.

Through the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, and it is slower than most buyers expect: commonly sixty to ninety days or more. The transfer requires an application, publication and posting of notice at the premises, a thirty-day protest period during which residents or agencies may object, and ABC investigation of the buyer. Escrow must be handled correctly under the Business & Professions Code, because paying the seller before the transfer is approved can leave you with neither the money nor the license. Local conditional use permits and any conditions already attached to the license also carry across. Do not sign a purchase agreement without accounting for all of this in the contingencies.

At minimum: broker-carrier agreements, shipper contracts with clear allocation of liability and Carmack Amendment considerations, owner-operator lease agreements that comply with the federal Truth-in-Leasing regulations (49 C.F.R. Part 376), independent contractor arrangements assessed against California’s AB 5 and the ABC test, equipment leases, and clean written procedures for cargo claims and accidents. The independent-contractor question is the one that most often becomes expensive in California, and it deserves a considered answer before an audit or a claim forces one.

Check the deadline before anything else. You generally have thirty days from service to respond, and a default judgment entered against a business is difficult and costly to undo. Then: notify your insurers immediately, because most policies contain prompt-notice conditions and late notice can forfeit coverage; preserve every relevant document and email, since deleting anything after notice of a claim creates a spoliation problem far worse than the underlying dispute; and stop discussing the matter with the other side directly. Then call.

Yes, within a defined scope: employment agreements and offer letters, independent contractor classification, handbooks and written policies, wage-and-hour compliance questions, terminations handled properly, and defense of individual claims. Where a matter escalates into a class action, a PAGA representative action or a complex Labor Commissioner proceeding, you will be told plainly and referred to specialist counsel. Knowing the boundary of your own practice is part of the service.