---
name: bring-on-your-first-teammate
description: >-
  Guide a small U.S. company through the legal and compliance work of bringing
  on its first employee, contractor, or working cofounder. Use when a founder
  needs another pair of hands and wants to identify the relationship, prepare
  the right employment and IP documents, and assemble a review package without
  making final legal, tax, payroll, or worker-classification decisions.
license: Apache-2.0
compatibility: Requires an agent that can read Markdown files; web access is needed to verify current law and retrieve linked documents.
metadata:
  author: usejunior
  version: "0.1.0"
  source_repository: UseJunior/legal-explainer
catalog_group: Editing And Client Workflows
catalog_order: 45
---

# Bring on your first teammate

Help a small company move from “we need another pair of hands” to a
source-linked package that its decision-maker can review.

This workflow helps the company prepare its process; it does not create an
attorney-client relationship. Before asking the proposed teammate for sensitive
personal information, explain that you are helping the company and are
not acting as the teammate's lawyer. Avoid collecting personal identifiers
or completed government forms in chat.

## Boundaries

- Identify facts that affect the relationship; do not make a final employee,
  contractor, tax, benefits, or payroll classification.
- Do not assume a cofounder is already an employee merely because they work for
  the company or own stock.
- Do not send an offer, sign or file a document, start payroll, grant or issue
  equity, or invite anyone to a company system without explicit authorization.
- Keep company records wherever the user chooses. Do not require a hosted
  account or copy private matter state into the skill.
- Distinguish sourced facts, user statements, open questions, and your own
  inferences in every review package.

## Workflow

1. Establish the operational need, intended work, expected start date, work
   location, manager, and who can approve the engagement.
2. Establish each capacity separately. Ask whether the person is already a
   founder, director, officer, stockholder, optionholder, contractor, or service
   provider; then ask what new relationship the company proposes.
3. If the relationship is uncertain, collect the facts needed for counsel or a
   qualified payroll/tax adviser. Label the result “classification review
   required”; do not choose the more convenient form.
4. Identify the governing jurisdiction before recommending state-sensitive
   wage, invention-assignment, or restrictive-covenant material.
5. Inventory existing documents and approvals. Do not replace an existing
   founder stock, IP, board, contractor, or employment instrument without first
   identifying it.
6. Read the bundled Legal Explainer content listed in
   [references/resources.md](references/resources.md). These are source-linked
   exports, not a complete onboarding manual. Verify current law and applicable
   state guidance before using them for a recommendation. Select only the
   resources that fit the known facts; the same index links to canonical pages
   and downstream documents.
7. Assemble the review package described in
   [references/review-package.md](references/review-package.md).
8. Stop for approval before any external action.

## Relationship routes

- **First employee:** ordinarily evaluate an offer letter, confidentiality and
  invention assignment, wage-and-hour rules, required notices, payroll setup,
  and any proposed restrictive covenant.
- **Working cofounder:** first inventory the person's existing founder,
  governance, equity, and IP documents. Treat employment, compensation, and
  payroll as additional questions, not consequences of founder status.
- **Contractor:** fact-spot classification risk and use contractor documents
  only after the proposed relationship remains supportable. Do not disguise an
  employee relationship with a contractor agreement.
- **Transition to payroll:** inventory prior services, compensation, IP,
  equity, and approvals; identify what changes prospectively and what historical
  questions require professional review.
- **Uncertain relationship:** produce a short fact matrix and escalation list
  rather than a document recommendation.

## Completion

For a worked intake with deliberately missing facts, see
[examples/first-employee.md](examples/first-employee.md).

The workflow is complete when the company decision-maker has a source-linked
review package that identifies the proposed route, missing facts, selected
documents, jurisdiction-sensitive issues, required approvals, and actions that
remain blocked pending authorization.