From LLCs to email contracts, USC expert answers your burning small business questions

Starting a business comes with a lot of questions, from whether to start an LLC or go the sole proprietor route, to protecting yourself as an independent contractor. USC Gould School of Law Professor Michael Chasalow is the right person to tackle questions like those. Over the last 12 years, he’s directed the law school’s Small Business Clinic, which provides pro bono legal services to small businesses in Southern California. The bread and butter of the clinic is getting businesses off the ground, protecting existing entities from liability and planning for growth. Although the clinic is completely student-led, as the supervising attorney Chasalow is hands-on with every client who walks through its doors. In the clinic, what are kind of the questions you ask to figure out which way a business might go in terms of forming an entity?