SAMPLE · FICTIONAL COMPANY

A sample Legal & Compliance Health Check

Every Murjis mandate begins with one. You send your file through the portal; Rachel, our AI assistant, reads and files it; your fractional executive reviews the file and delivers a risk-ranked report, a plan for the year, and the positions your company will take on recurring terms. This is the summary page a client sees in the portal, for a fictional company. The full report runs to eight to twelve pages.

LEGAL & COMPLIANCE HEALTH CHECK

Northwind Technologies Inc.

The company is well organized for its stage; the two gaps that matter are the ones a customer's procurement team and a Series A investor will each find in their first week.

Published September 2026
Report: 12 pages, PDF
THE HEADLINE
✓ CORPORATE RECORD
Clean articles, signed by-laws, a resolution for every issuance, the SAFEs on the cap table.
✓ FINANCING
Two post-money SAFEs on standard terms, properly authorized and recorded.
✕ IP OWNERSHIP
Three of five engineers are contractors with no assignment of what they wrote.
✕ CUSTOMER PAPER
Eleven customers on four versions of the terms; no data processing addendum on any.
FOCUS AREAS
1
Own the code

Contractor engineers wrote core product without assigning it; every diligence checklist asks for the chain of title.

2
One set of customer terms

A master agreement with a data processing addendum, order form and SLA replaces four generations of terms.

3
Privacy that sells

Customers are asking for a privacy program, subprocessor list and breach protocol; none is written down.

AT A GLANCE
Corporate structure and recordsSOUND
GovernanceNEEDS WORK
Commercial contracts and customer termsNEEDS WORK
Employment and contractorsGAP
Intellectual propertyGAP
Financing and equitySOUND
Real property and insuranceNEEDS WORK
Disputes and claimsSOUND
Privacy and dataNEEDS WORK
Regulatory and complianceNOT ASSESSED

Sound means in good order for a company of your size. Needs work means the foundations exist but specific items must be fixed. Gap means something the business should have is missing. Not assessed means the area sits outside the seat engaged and is handed to the right seat.

PRIORITY ONE · OWN THE CODE
1
Contractor IP assignments

Confirmatory assignments and waivers of moral rights from the three contractor engineers, present and past; one has left and needs a separate approach.

FIX: DAY 1
2
Open-source inventory

The product ships with dependencies under licences that carry obligations; an inventory and a policy before the next customer security review.

MONTH 1
3
Trademark

The name is unregistered in Canada and the United States; a search and filings before the marketing push.

MONTH 2
THE PLAN
DAY 1
Stop-loss

Contractor IP assignments · founder IP confirmed · the one customer contract with unlimited liability amended

4.0h
MONTH 1
Customer paper

Master agreement, DPA, order form and SLA drafted from the playbook · migration plan for eleven customers

8.0h
MONTH 2
Privacy program

Privacy policy and notices · subprocessor list · breach protocol · Law 25 designation

8.0h
MONTH 3
Raise readiness

Option plan adopted · data room built · employment agreements re-papered with enforceable terms

8.0h

The schedule is a plan only; priorities in the business and emerging risk may change the order and the timing.

ONLY YOU CAN MAKE THESE
?
Data residency · Offer Canadian-only hosting as a term?

It wins regulated customers and costs a second environment; declining keeps the stack simple and narrows the market.

?
Service credits · Cap them, or make them the customer's exclusive remedy?

Credits as the exclusive remedy protect the company; some enterprise buyers will not sign them.

WHAT HAPPENS FIRST

The first counsel day secures the chain of title to the code and amends the one customer contract that exposes the company without limit.

Next Legal & Compliance Health Check due twelve months after publication; you and your executive are reminded a week before.

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Northwind Technologies Inc. is fictional. The findings are typical of a seed-stage software company and are illustrative only; they are not advice about any company.