[hackerspaces] Hackerspace legal formation and insurance

[Jason Bailey]

Matt,

DBA is just "doing business as" and is in order to legally conduct
business in a name other than your registered corporation name.  You
could, for instance, file with the state as "Austin Hackerspace Inc"
and then further file a DBA as the actual name of the space.  (This is
in fact what Hive13 does here in Cincinnati.)

http://www.nolo.com/ is a good resource, in general, for deciding LLC
or S-Corp, etc.

The insurance question has been discussed on this list a few times in
the past (in fact, I sent a similar email a year ago).  I'll point you
to the archives of this list here
http://lists.hackerspaces.org/pipermail/discuss/ though there isn't an
easy search interface that I could find.

Hive13 has liability insurance through a local company here in
Cincinnati, http://www.cai-insurance.com/ Your group will need to
decide how much coverage you want.  We have I believe $2,000,000 in
general aggregate liability coverage with some per-incident maximums
and pay around $900/yr.  Find a local insurance company and ask for a
quote; they will probably ask questions about what types of activities
go on in your space (or that you plan to have) and decide from there.

Jason



On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 5:17 PM, Matthew McCabe <matt at mrmccabe.com> wrote:
> The Austin Hackerspace is looking at options for forming a legal
> entity and are considering an LLC or DBA.  What legal formation do the
> US based hackerspaces typically use?
>
> Also, we are looking at buying liability insurance to protect the
> founders and members of the space.  Any suggestions on what level of
> coverage we should have?  Or recommendations on companies that provide
> cheap liability insurance?
>
> Thank you for your help!
>
> -Matt
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