Richard D. Harroch

Richard D. Harroch is an attorney with over 20 years of experience in representing start-up and emerging companies, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists. He is listed in Who’s Who in American Law and is a corporate partner in a major law firm in San Francisco. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of U.C. Berkeley and graduated from UCLA Law School, where he was managing editor of the Law Review. He has edited or co-authored a number of legal/business books, including Start-Up and Emerging Companies: Planning, Financing and Operating the Successful Business and Partnership and Joint Venture Agreements.
Richard was the chairman and co-founder of AllBusiness.com, one of the premier Web sites for small businesses. He was also the founder, CEO, and chairman of LawCommerce, Inc., an Internet company dedicated to providing products and sources to the legal profession.
He has lectured extensively before various legal and business organizations, including the American Electronics Association, the Venture Capital Institute, the California Continuing Education of the Bar, Law Journal Seminars-Press, the California State Bar Business Section, the Corporate Counsel Institute, the San Francisco Bar, and the Practicing Law Institute (PLI).
Richard has served as the chairman of the California State Bar Committee on Partnerships, the co-chairman of the Corporations Committee of the San Francisco Bar (Barristers), a member of the Executive Committee of the Business Law Section of the California State Bar, and co-chair of the Law Journal seminar in New York on “Joint Ventures and Strategic Alliances.”
Richard has experience in the following areas: start-up and emerging companies, corporate financings, joint ventures, strategic alliances, venture capital financings, employment agreements, IPOs, leases, loans, online and Internet matters, license agreements, partnerships, preferred stock, confidentiality agreements, stock options, sales contracts, securities laws, and mergers and acquisitions.

Articles & Books From Richard D. Harroch

Cheat Sheet / Updated 05-03-2022
Owning and running a small business calls for a variety of skills, perhaps foremost among them organizational. If you’re going to incorporate your business, you need to explore the differences between becoming a C corporation and an S corporation. And if you want to attract investors or even apply for a loan, you’d better be familiar with the key elements of a business plan.
Cheat Sheet / Updated 01-20-2022
Whether you play poker for fun or money, you can use bluffing strategies and the rules of etiquette for games at home. If you play for money, tips for managing your poker chips may come in handy.Poker etiquette at homeWhen you’re playing poker in your home or someone else’s, the rules of etiquette are mostly commonsense conventions and normal poker protocols.
Article / Updated 03-26-2016
A corporation is a separate legal entity formed under a state corporation law. Your small business can register as a C corporation or an S corporation if you go the corporation route, which you may want to do to shield shareholders from the corporation’s debts and liabilities. The following key points characterize C corporations: Limited liability: Generally, the shareholders, officers, and directors of the corporation aren’t personally liable for the corporation’s debts and liabilities.
Article / Updated 03-26-2016
The colorful quotations you hear in poker can be based on real events or just made up from long ago. Here is a list of some popular quotations along with an explanation of what a person really means when he uses the quote. Phrase Translation "I'd rather be lucky than good." Typically said by a player who is neither lucky nor good.
Article / Updated 03-26-2016
Some players — and it's only a few of them, to be sure — never bluff. After you figure out who they are, playing against them is easy. If they bet once all the cards are out, you can safely throw your hand away unless you believe that your hand is superior to theirs. If it is, you should raise. Other people are habitual bluffers.
Article / Updated 03-26-2016
Seven-Card Stud requires patience. Because you're dealt three cards right off the bat — before the first round of betting — it's important that these cards are able to work together before you enter a pot. In fact, the most critically important decision you'll make in a Seven-Card Stud game is whether to enter the pot on third street — the first round of betting.
Article / Updated 03-26-2016
Like a house, poker requires a foundation. Only when that foundation is solidly in place can you proceed to build on it. When all the structural elements are in place, you can then add flourishes and decorative touches. But you can't begin embellishing it until the foundation has been poured, the building framed, and all the other elements that come before it are in place.
Article / Updated 03-26-2016
Dealing with the paperwork is a large part of running a small business. The following table suggests essential file drawers to label in an actual file cabinet or two and what must-keep information to file in each: File Drawer What To Put There File Drawer What To Put There Accounting and bookkeeping records Sales and expense information, inventory, ledgers, income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, and other financial statements.
Article / Updated 03-26-2016
If you want investors for your small business, you need to write a business plan so that you have something to present to bankers and potential investors. The format of every good business plan, although not set in stone, tends to run along the same basic lines — it shouldn’t have anything that surprises investors.
Article / Updated 03-26-2016
When you're playing poker in your home or someone else's, the rules of etiquette are mostly commonsense conventions and normal poker protocols. Following are a list of things to do and things to avoid doing during a friendly game at home: Do . . . Be honest: Don't try to short-change the pot or otherwise cheat.