When you are hiring someone, there are many things to consider. Finding the right person for the job is certainly one of them. But just as important are taking steps to protect yourself from charges of discriminatory hiring practices and ensuring that your job offer does not somehow imply a "contract of employment" — which means that you could end up having to pay damages if you try to fire the employee. The attached file contains four documents that will help accomplish all of these goals. The first is an application form to help make sure you have all the relevant information at hand to pick the best applicant. The second is a waiver form to protect you from unintentionally creating an employment contract during the hiring process. The third is a form to help document your hiring selection process to show that you are not engaging in discriminatory practices. The file also includes a post-employment information form for your employee records. You can quickly customize all of these documents for your needs.

As careful as you may be to select the best employees available and to manage them well, it's likely that, at some point, you'll have to fire somebody. For most business owners and managers, this is definitely not a job to look forward to. Making it worse are the facts that there is a growing body of law that limits your right to fire workers, and that more and more workers seem to be filing (and winning) lawsuits against their former employers.

When designing your email marketing campaigns, you need to be aware of some restrictions. The CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) established the country's first national standards for the sending of commercial email and requires the FTC to enforce its provisions. The affects of the CAN-SPAM Act are far-reaching. Virtually every e-mail sent by your business is affected.

Generally, the U.S. courts lack a loser pays system, which is a serious risk factor inherent in litigation. One way to control these risk factors is to find exceptions that make the loser pay in a lawsuit.

Display ads were once the most popular form of advertising on the Internet. In recent years, however, text ads, driven by search engine marketing, have become more popular. The effectiveness of banner ads relies on volume because click-thru rates are very low, averaging 0.5 percent. This means for each thousand display ads purchased, you can expect five click-thrus.

A wild card exemption in your comprehensive asset exemption plan may be the most effective way, or the only way, from an exemption viewpoint, to protect an ownership interest in a business, which is considered an item of personal property.

A poor employment agency will waste your time by performing inadequate screening, thus sending your business unqualified applicants. Unscrupulous agencies will misrepresent the job to the applicant and the applicant to the employer in an effort to get their fees. Such practices are outlawed, and most states require agencies to be licensed and bonded. But even within the law, some agencies are engaged in hard-sell tactics that don't always best serve either client or company.

The offshore asset protection trust shares certain characteristics with domestic asset protection trusts. Thus, if you're thinking of setting up such a trust, you must carefully consider the irrevocable and discretionary nature of the trust.

Here are some guidelines for creating memorable advertising that really sells:

The first rule of ethical email marketing is to never send unsolicited commercial email. This means you should only send emails to customers that have willingly provided their email address and have extended permission to send commercial messages.