Starting Your Firm

See our services and guides below related to starting design professional firms.

Related Services

• Document Filing

  If you are changing the name of your firm, modifying ownership interests or amending other information in your business filings, LicenseSure can help you prepare and file the required legal documentation.

• Registered Agent

  Some states require businesses to have an in-state Registered Agent, who will accept service of process and receive legal, tax, and corporate governance filings on behalf of the business.

• Entity Formation

  LicenseSure will help you prepare and file the required legal documentation to form a legally-appropriate business entity, be it a professional corporation, limited liability company, corporation, limited liability partnership, or other type of entity.

• Foreign Qualification

  LicenseSure will help you prepare and file the required legal documentation to qualify your entity to do business outside of your home state.

• Document Retrieval

  LicenseSure can retrieve organizational documents, certified copies of filings, Good Standing Certificates, or Certificates of Existence upon request.

Education Center

• Do You Need a Business Entity?

  Starting a business and forming an entity are two different things.

• What Type of Business Entity Should You Form?

  Starting an architectural firm is a big decision. One of the next big decisions for the architectural entrepreneur is deciding what form of business entity will be appropriate for your current practice as well as your future practice.

• What's in a Name?

  When a client comes to us to form a New York business, the first step we take is to evaluate the proposed name of the entity.

• Is Your Entity Licensed in Addition to Your Team?

  Architects and their practices are highly regulated because of their charge to safeguard life, health, property and the public welfare.

• Building a Business in New York: An Overview of Entity and Tax Considerations

  Design professionals all over the world have taken to heart the words famously crooned by Frank Sinatra, "I want to be a part of it, New York, New York."

• In Praise of NY's Design Professional Service Corps

  I am seeing a lot of action on the Design Professional Service Corporation (DPC) front. The DPC is the only entity in which New York permits non-licensed owners of architecture, engineering and other design professional firms.

• Benefit Corporations: Do Good and Do Well

  The Benefit Corporation is considered a hybrid of a for-profit corporation and a not-for-profit in that the directors do not run the corporation solely to maximize corporate value for its shareholders.

• Starting a Design Firm: When Two's a Crowd

  Many of my clients and potential clients are in the process of setting up their own design firms. In my discussions with these design professionals, I am always interested to hear what financial and business management issues they have already considered or believe to be important.

• I Already Know if Your Design Professional Firm is Going to Fail

  A gratifying part of my business is helping design professionals start their own practices. I usually have a gut feeling about who is going to make it, and who may decide that being an employee wasn’t so bad after all.