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Business Legal Debt Scorecard

How Much Legal Debt Is Hiding in Your Business?

Growing businesses change faster than their contracts, ownership documents, governance systems, and legal processes. This free 20-question scorecard helps identify areas where the legal infrastructure may no longer match the company you are actually running.

No email required. No obligation. Get your score immediately. This is an educational screening tool, not a legal-risk rating.

Take the Free Scorecard What Is Legal Debt?
20 Questions About 10 minutes to complete.
Four Business Areas Ownership, contracts, operations, and future readiness.
Instant Result See your overall and category scores immediately.
Legal Advice That Understands Business

Your Business Grew. Did Your Legal Infrastructure Grow With It?

Business owners do not operate in a law-school hypothetical. Decisions involve money, customers, employees, timing, relationships, opportunity, and risk.

The same is true of legal infrastructure. An operating agreement that made sense when the company was formed may not fit the company five years later. Customer contracts may no longer reflect how the business sells. Ownership changes may never have made it into the records. Important handshake arrangements can become substantial commercial relationships.

We call that accumulated gap between the company and the legal systems supporting it legal debt.

This Scorecard is designed to help you identify where that gap may exist before a dispute, acquisition, lender, owner, or buyer forces the issue.

Four Areas

What the Scorecard Reviews

  • Ownership & Governance
  • Contracts & Commercial Relationships
  • Assets, Operations & Recurring Problems
  • Growth, Succession & Exit Readiness
Take the Scorecard

Answer Based on the Business You Have Today

Choose the answer that best describes your company. If you cannot confidently answer Yes, selecting Not Sure can itself be useful information.

YES = 0 NOT SURE = 1 NO = 2
0 of 20 answered 0%
Section 1

Ownership & Governance

1. Do your ownership records accurately reflect everyone who currently owns an interest in the business?
Consider governing documents, transfers, equity promises, tax treatment, and ownership changes since formation.
2. Do your operating agreement, shareholder agreement, or other governing documents still reflect how the business actually operates?
Consider voting, management authority, distributions, transfers, and changes since the documents were prepared.
3. Do you know what happens if an owner wants to leave the company?
Think about buyouts, valuation, payment terms, transfer rights, and decision-making.
4. Is there a workable plan if an owner dies or becomes unable to participate in the business?
Consider succession, ownership transfer, buy-sell provisions, funding, and management continuity.
5. Are significant ownership and management decisions properly documented?
Consider major financing, ownership changes, officer changes, distributions, and significant transactions.
Section 2

Contracts & Commercial Relationships

6. Do you know which version of your standard customer agreement should currently be used?
Consider whether multiple versions are circulating through sales, operations, or management.
7. Do your customer agreements still match how the business actually sells and delivers its products or services?
Think about scope, pricing, payment, warranties, deliverables, termination, and current operations.
8. Do your payment terms provide a practical process when a customer does not pay?
Consider deposits, deadlines, change orders, suspension, collections, and overdue balances.
9. Are your most important vendor and supplier relationships appropriately documented?
Focus particularly on relationships the business would have difficulty replacing quickly.
10. Is there a consistent process for determining who can sign or modify important contracts?
Consider whether employees or managers can change terms, make commitments, or approve contracts without clear limits.
Section 3

Assets, Operations & Recurring Problems

11. Do you know that the business owns or has appropriate rights to the intellectual property it relies on?
Consider websites, logos, software, photographs, designs, written materials, databases, and contractor-created work.
12. Are you avoiding repeated versions of the same customer, vendor, payment, or contractual dispute?
Recurring problems may indicate a contract or process issue rather than unrelated one-off events.
13. Have important handshake arrangements been documented when the relationship became significant?
Consider what would happen if ownership, management, financial circumstances, or the relationship changed.
14. Do you know where the company's important signed agreements and business records are located?
Imagine needing to produce them for a lender, buyer, investor, accountant, or attorney next week.
15. Have prior acquisitions or significant acquired assets been fully integrated from a legal and documentation standpoint?
Consider entities, contracts, licenses, assumed names, intellectual property, leases, and post-closing obligations.
Section 4

Growth, Succession & Exit Readiness

16. Have your legal documents and systems been reviewed since the company's last significant period of growth or change?
Consider ownership changes, revenue growth, acquisitions, new locations, large customers, or substantial borrowing.
17. Have you identified the legal issues associated with the company's next major objective?
This could include an acquisition, expansion, financing, new owner, new product, succession, or future sale.
18. If a sophisticated buyer began due diligence next week, could you produce the company's important legal documents without substantial reconstruction?
You do not need to be planning a sale for this question to be useful.
19. Have the owners discussed what ultimately happens to the business?
Consider sale, retirement, family succession, management succession, death, or disability.
20. Is there a process for periodically identifying and prioritizing legal issues instead of addressing them only after something goes wrong?
This does not necessarily require ongoing counsel. The question is whether legal infrastructure is reviewed intentionally over time.
Your Results

Ready to See Where Your Business Stands?

Complete all 20 questions to calculate your overall score and see which category may deserve the closest look.

Please answer all 20 questions before calculating your score.
Your Business Legal Debt Score
0
/ 40

Ownership & Governance
0/10
Contracts & Commercial Relationships
0/10
Assets, Operations & Recurring Problems
0/10
Growth, Succession & Exit Readiness
0/10
Area to Look at More Closely

Don't Just Count the Points

The individual answers are often more important than the total. Review every question you answered No or Not Sure and ask:

  1. What happens if we do nothing?
  2. How likely is the issue to matter?
  3. How expensive or disruptive could it become?
  4. Is something happening in the next 12–24 months that makes it more important now?
Turn Your Score Into a Legal Roadmap

Your Score Shows Where to Look. The Assessment Helps Determine What Actually Matters.

$750

Flat Fee • No Monthly Counsel Commitment Required

The 30-Day Business Legal Assessment is designed to help separate the important issues from the merely possible ones. We begin with the business, its ownership, contracts, recurring problems, growth plans, and objectives, then help identify what may deserve attention now, what can wait, and what may simply be monitored or accepted.

Book a Discovery Call Learn About the $750 Assessment
Business Owner Resources

Better Decisions Start With Better Information

Use these resources to understand legal debt, outside counsel, and the systems that can help a growing business stay ahead of preventable problems.

What Is Legal Debt? Learn how outdated legal systems can accumulate as a business grows. The Legal Debt Audit Read the full educational guide behind the Scorecard. When Does a Small Business Need Outside General Counsel? Learn when recurring legal needs may justify ongoing counsel. How Much Does Outside General Counsel Cost? Compare pricing models and levels of legal involvement. Business Solutions Counsel™ Explore ongoing legal counsel for growing businesses. Business Law Explore transactions, governance, contracts, ownership, and business counsel.
Frequently Asked Questions

Business Legal Debt Scorecard FAQs

What is legal debt?

Legal debt is the accumulation of outdated documents, unresolved ownership issues, informal arrangements, unfinished legal work, and other gaps that can develop when a company's legal infrastructure does not keep pace with the business.

Is this a legal-risk assessment?

No. This is an educational screening tool. The score does not determine whether a legal issue exists, how serious any issue may be, or whether legal action is appropriate.

What do the scores mean?

Scores from 0–8 identify relatively few areas of uncertainty. Scores from 9–20 identify more areas that may deserve review. Scores from 21–40 identify a larger number of uncertain or potentially outdated areas and may make a structured review worth considering. Individual answers may matter more than the total score.

What is the 30-Day Business Legal Assessment?

The Skeen Firm offers a structured Business Legal Assessment for a flat $750 fee for qualifying businesses. It is designed to help understand the business, identify issues within the agreed scope, establish priorities, and determine appropriate next steps.

Do I have to sign up for ongoing counsel afterward?

No. The assessment is a standalone engagement. Depending on the circumstances, the next step may be a discrete project, recurring counsel, a longer-term roadmap, or no immediate additional legal work.

Who is this Scorecard designed for?

It is primarily designed for established and growing businesses, particularly companies that have experienced ownership changes, increased contract volume, acquisitions, expansion, recurring disputes, or other changes that may have outpaced their legal infrastructure.

Start Here

Build the Business. Protect What You're Building.

Whether your next step is cleaning up an operating agreement, improving contracts, preparing for an acquisition, planning an exit, or simply figuring out what deserves attention first, start with a clearer picture of the business you have today.

Book a Discovery Call Call 724-250-8841
Business Solutions Counsel™
Everyday Legal Advice®. Practical Counsel for Growing Businesses.

Attorney Advertising. The Business Legal Debt Scorecard is provided solely for general educational and informational purposes. It is not legal advice, a legal opinion, a comprehensive legal audit, or a determination of any particular company's legal risk. Completing the Scorecard, visiting this website, booking a consultation, or communicating with The Skeen Firm does not by itself create an attorney-client relationship. Representation is subject to conflicts review, applicable jurisdiction, attorney availability, and execution of a written engagement agreement.