Hire vs DIY · Flagship
When DIY is fine
When the matter is in between
When you should hire me
Should I hire an attorney, or use a DIY US LLC formation service?
If you are based in Asia or the Russian-speaking world and you need a US entity, the question is rarely "form an LLC, yes or no." Stripe Atlas, Firstbase, Doola, and Mercury's referral partners do the routine paperwork well and cheaply. The question is whether your specific situation has a structural wrinkle, a sanctions wrinkle, a tax-residence wrinkle, or a banking-onboarding wrinkle that the routine service will route around without telling you. I run a flagship cross-border practice from Pattaya, Thailand. This page is about deciding when the routine service is the right tool and when it is the wrong one. The free generators on this site cover the routine deliverables. Attorney work covers the things that fail silently.
Use the free generators on this site (or a routine service) when
- You are a non-resident founder with no sanctions exposure, forming a single-member LLC for self-serve SaaS or e-commerce. The Delaware LLC OA Generator or a routine Atlas/Firstbase package produces working paper.
- You need a US LLC to bill US customers in USD and onboard Stripe. A Wyoming or Delaware LLC formed through a routine service usually works. Read the US LLC for non-residents insight for the trade-offs.
- You want a baseline US-favorable subscription agreement for your enterprise customers. The SaaS Agreement Generator and the DPA Generator are starting points.
- You want to map your foreign-founder US entry path before paying anyone. The Foreign Founder US Entry Strategy Generator walks through entity choice, banking, and tax-residence flags.
- You need to understand US tax exposure as an Asia-based founder. Read the US tax exposure insight. A disregarded-entity LLC owned by a non-resident has predictable rules; the failure modes are dependent agent in the US, fixed place of business in the US, or US-source services income.
- You are reading a US customer contract before signing it. Drop it into the free AI Legal Analyst chatbox for a clause-level read. Pair with the choice-of-law US-Asia SaaS insight.
- You are doing exploratory work and the entity may not survive twelve months. A routine LLC service is cheap enough that the formation cost is the right tradeoff while you validate the business.
Book a 30-minute consultation when
- You are a Russian-speaking founder relocating from Russia and uncertain about OFAC and bank-onboarding posture. A $125 / 30 min consult, conducted in Russian, walks through where your structure sits relative to General Licenses and SDN screening. This is structuring, not regulatory licensing.
- You are not sure whether a Delaware C-corp or a Wyoming LLC is the right entity for your situation. Twenty minutes against your facts is usually enough to decide. The recurring answer is C-corp if you are taking US institutional capital, LLC if you are bootstrapping.
- You have an existing foreign entity and you are setting up a US subsidiary or sister entity. The IP transfer and the inter-company agreement add layers the routine service does not handle. One scoping call covers the realistic plan.
- You are about to hire a US contractor (W-9) or US employee (W-2) from your foreign entity. The dependent-agent and permanent-establishment risk is real and structure-dependent. A consult tells you whether the hire creates US tax exposure.
- You are negotiating a US customer agreement with choice-of-law and forum that may be unenforceable in your home jurisdiction. The consult covers practical enforceability, which is usually the only thing that matters.
Hire me for the matter when
- You are forming a US entity to take institutional US capital. Routine LLC services produce LLC paper, not Delaware C-corp paper that an institutional investor will close on. The $750 Corp formation package plus founders stock purchase agreements is the right tool. See the cross-border practice page.
- You are moving pre-formation IP from a foreign developer agreement or foreign entity into a US entity. The IP transfer chain has to survive investor due diligence. Hourly work at $240/hr. The deliverable is the assignment package and the memo, not a click-through.
- You are a Russian passport holder, an Iranian passport holder, a Cuban passport holder, or otherwise screened against the SDN list at routine onboarding. Routine services rejected you or routed you into a slow path. I have onboarded founders in this posture and I know which structures clear. Engagement letters can be conducted in Russian; deliverables are in English. See the related practice page.
- You are an Asia-based agency, contractor, or services firm with an unpaid US customer over $25,000. A $575 demand letter on California attorney letterhead, sent to the US customer's general counsel, lands differently than an unrepresented invoice reminder from overseas. See the getting paid from Asia insight.
- You have a US permanent-establishment or US tax-residence question that affects your filing position. The screening is mine; the return position belongs to a US CPA, to whom I refer. I will tell you which structures avoid the question and which structures invite it.
- Your US entity has a real banking problem (Mercury closure, Wise restriction, Brex denial) and you need to fix the structure, not just resubmit. Routine services cannot escalate. An attorney letter and a restructure plan can.
- You are doing a cross-border SaaS deal where the customer is in Asia and the vendor is US, or vice versa. The choice-of-law, withholding tax, treaty-rate eligibility, and arbitration enforceability questions stack up. A redline reading the contract on both sides at once is the work.
The honest decision rubric
- Is your structure routine or wrinkled? Routine: non-resident founder, no sanctions exposure, no foreign-entity history, no pre-existing IP to migrate. Routine cases run on Atlas, Firstbase, or Doola. Anything else is wrinkled and the routine service will route around the wrinkle without telling you.
- Are you taking US institutional capital in the next twelve months? If yes, you want a Delaware C-corp formed by an attorney with investor-ready paper, not an LLC converted later. Conversion is expensive and disruptive.
- Do you have a passport, location, or transaction history that triggers OFAC screening? If yes, attorney structuring is essentially required. Routine services either reject you or onboard you into a posture you cannot defend later.
- Is the deal already in dispute? Disputes are not formation work. The routine service has no role; the demand-letter and arbitration analysis is the work.
This page is informational and does not constitute legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Engagement begins only after written conflict check and a signed scope agreement. I am licensed in California (Bar #279869) and based in Pattaya, Thailand. I provide structuring counsel; tax return positions belong to a CPA partner. OFAC screening is not OFAC representation.
If your situation lines up with the hire column
Send me one paragraph on where you are, what entity you have or want, and what the next twelve months looks like. I respond personally, usually within one business day. If the right answer is Atlas or a routine service plus a one-page memo, I will tell you and I will not bill you for telling you.
See the cross-border practice page Email the intake