That lawyer in Austin said my LLC bylaws were fine... they weren't

A buddy recommended a local attorney to look over my startup docs and he said my single-member LLC bylaws were good to go. Well, 8 months later I tried to open a business bank account at Chase and they rejected it because the bylaws didn't have a clause about member meetings. Had to pay $400 to get them rewritten and filed again. Has anyone else had a routine document come back to bite them later?

3 comments

3 Comments

grace_campbell24d ago

Hold up, did the first lawyer actually say single-member LLCs don't need meeting clauses, or did he just forget to include one? I'm curious what made you trust him in the first place - was he from a big firm or just a solo guy? Because I've heard that Chase is super picky about operating agreements, like they want to see specific wording about member consent and stuff. What exactly was missing from your bylaws besides the meeting clause?

adamthompson24d ago

Nora same thing happened to me with a different bank lol

nora_park24d ago

Oh man, that first lawyer... I trusted him because he was actually from a pretty big firm downtown, like the kind with glass walls and a fancy lobby. But yeah, he straight-up told me single-member LLCs don't need meeting clauses because you're the only one making decisions anyway. Which, idk, sounded logical at first but now I feel like a total joke for not double-checking. The missing stuff besides the meeting clause was basically everything about how to handle member consent for loans and stuff like that. Chase wanted to see specific wording about "written consent in lieu of meetings" and I had nothing, so they kicked the whole thing back. I mean, maybe it's just me but I think I learned the hard way that big firm lawyers can still miss the obvious stuff.