At this point, do we need a lawyer who isn't part of the church?
Oct 23, 2025As your church grows and does more things, it gets harder to cope with the legal and operational issues. When a church gets to a certain point, which is often without warning, it can't handle governance, compliance, contracts, and risk management on its own anymore. We should now ask ourselves a crucial question: Do we need a lawyer who isn't already working for the company?
You need to know how your church's legal needs evolve over time, be able to identify warning signs, and analyze the genuine benefits of engaging outside lawyers in order to answer this. This book goes into great detail on these topics and explains why it's necessary to have a strategic legal partner at different stages of growth. It also talks about the services offered by Tier 2: THE FOUNDATION PLUS PLAN and Tier 3: THE PASTOR SUPPORT PLAN to explain how churches can find legal counsel that meets their current requirements and future ambitions.
Part 1: Why a church that is more complicated needs more legal support
Churches are unique organizations with a spiritual mission that aren't businesses and have a lot of intricate needs when it comes to running things. The law changes in key ways as churches grow and achieve important membership numbers like 100, 500, or 2,500. Some of the key reasons why the need for legal help is growing are:
- More intricate governance needs: Larger boards, organizations with several campuses, and layered leadership all need more complex governance policies, clear delegation, and solid methods for oversight.
- When you have paid employees and a lot of volunteers, it's very vital to obey employment laws, complete background checks, follow onboarding procedures, and follow HR rules.
- Property and contractual complexity: You need to know a lot about the law to buy or rent property, negotiate vendor contracts, and manage facility expansions.
- Financial oversight and tax compliance: When money is more complicated, it needs more rigorous audits, following donor regulations, and obeying IRS laws.
- Risk management: As a business gets bigger, it has more problems with liability when it comes to kid safety, workplace safety, insurance coverage, and being ready for a disaster.
- Intellectual property and media: In the digital age, protecting church trademarks, online content, and branding is very important.
These issues are increasingly harder to deal with, which means that informal or ad hoc legal help isn't always enough.
Part 2: When your church needs a lawyer who isn't a member
If you know when to call a lawyer, you may take care of things ahead of time instead of putting out fires. Some crucial signs are:
- Staff and leaders often have to cope with intricate legal issues or advice that doesn't agree.
- If your bylaws are unclear, your decisions are taking too long, or your board is at odds, you need professional guidance.
- You require extremely specific legal guidance whether you buy property, merge firms, change leaders, or launch new ministries.
- Worries about breaking the rules or laws: warnings, audits, or close calls with the IRS, state agencies, or insurance companies.
- The company doesn't know much about the law: There are no lawyers on staff, and they can't rely on volunteers who don't know anything about the law.
- Rising risk or litigation threats: Higher insurance rates or past legal claims are signs that there are concerns.
- Want for a strategic partnership: The ministry's leaders want to have advice all the time that is part of the ministry's strategy and operations.
Part 3: Benefits of hiring an outside lawyer
A legal partner from outside the company can help with more than just the basics. They can also help with:
- Specialized church law expertise: a lot of knowledge of the laws for 501(c)(3) organizations, compensating pastors, running a nonprofit, and new legal developments.
- Objective and private advice: Getting advice from someone outside of your group who isn't involved in its politics can help you make wise decisions.
- Proactive risk management: Regular audits, policy reviews, and spotting problems early on can help you prevent costly problems.
- Efficiency and scalability: You can acquire help from experts when you need it without having to hire full-time staff.
- Leaders may focus on their ministry because they know that legal difficulties are being handled.
- Access to networks: Being able to meet and talk to more people who work in insurance, finance, and ministry consulting.
Part 4: How outside counsel helps the church grow and manage it
Here are some particular ways that outside legal partners can help:
- Writing and changing the rules and regulations for running the business: Making sure that there are clear and lawful norms for having power and making decisions.
- Following the law when recruiting and volunteering means drafting employee handbooks, guidelines for background checks, and contracts.
- Negotiating and revising contracts: securing good terms and protecting the church's interests in vendor and partnership agreements.
- To protect intellectual property, you need to file trademarks, keep an eye on copyrights, and stop anyone from utilizing them without permission.
- Financial and tax compliance: Getting ready for audits, making sure donors obey the regulations, and giving advice on how to save money on taxes.
- Risk management: Setting rules for protecting kids, waiving liability, and reviewing insurance.
- Crisis management and litigation: Helping people make smart decisions when they are in the middle of a lawsuit or other difficulty.
Part 5: Money matters and how to get the most out of your money
You can plan your budget ahead of time and keep getting legal work through subscription choices. Billing by the hour, on the other hand, does not.
- Tiered service plans: Set service levels based on how big and complicated the church is so you don't have to pay for services you don't use.
- The value of preventive legal work: Paying for audits and policy reviews can help you avoid having to pay for expensive legal claims.
- Using legal credits and discounts: Many subscription programs let you labor for cheap by the hour.
- Budgeting for legal partnerships: Putting the legal budget at the top of the ministry's list of things to spend money on makes it last longer.
Part 6: A look at the differences between Tier 2 and Tier 3 legal help
Tier 2: THE FOUNDATION PLUS PLAN
- Designed for congregations with 900 to 2,500 members.
- Provides access to a top-tier network, legal audits, trademark filings, and ordination tax reports.
- Focuses on following the law and lowering risk.
- Gives out legal credits every month and charges less per hour.
Tier 3: THE PASTOR SUPPORT PLAN
- For churches that have between 2,500 and 10,000 members.
- Includes everything in Tier 2, plus quarterly planning meetings for executives, priority support, reviews of insurance and overhead costs, and audits of pastoral salaries.
- Provides a wide range of legal and business services.
- Best for churches that wish to expand in a smart way and obtain advice from business leaders.
You should not consider this blog post as legal advice; it is only for informational purposes. Churches should contact lawyers who are licensed to find out what their legal needs are.
In short,
Choosing to hire an independent lawyer is a smart move that can have a huge impact on your church's growth, compliance, and risk management. When you realize that your church needs more than just informal legal help, you can acquire professional help that will help your mission last. Tier 2: THE FOUNDATION PLUS PLAN and Tier 3: THE PASTOR SUPPORT PLAN both offer customizable, full-service legal advice that fits your church's needs and goals. This gives you peace of mind and a strong legal foundation for future growth.
