How the Plain English and Free Access to Law movements may have opened up an area of opportunity previously unavailable to most small businesses

It has been long established that small and large businesses do not operate under the same level playing field. Generally, large businesses have excess to resources such as capital, technology and new markets that most small businesses do not. In terms of law, small businesses also do not have the same level of access as most large businesses generally do. For example, large businesses can afford to hire corporate lawyers (Marks 1999; McWilliams & Michael 1992; Hoadley 1992; Williams & Williams 1994) to interpret the law and explain what it meant to their businesses (O’Brien 2006), whereas small businesses are generally small-scale, independent enterprises that are managed, funded and operated by its owners; and whose staff size, financial resources and assets are comparatively limited in scale (Schaper and Volery 2007). In this research it is argued that the playing field between small and large businesses has been comparatively uneven in the particular aspect of ascertaining possible new business opportunities. This research investigates how two recent law reforms, the Plain English and Free Access to Law movements, have opened up an area of opportunity to seek new business opportunities that was previously unavailable to most small businesses; creating a level playing field for small and large business in terms of having access to this aspect of law; thus enabling small businesses to do the things that large businesses can do, in terms of applying the law to the business plan, in search of new business opportunities. To illustrate: (1) This research proposes that changes brought about by the Plain English movement have made it possible for the small business sector to better understand what the relevant laws mean to their particular industry (Munter 2004). For example, certain industries may be restricted by a new law (federal, state or local) whereas others may enjoy new government grants or concessions. These laws were previously written in ‘old style’ legalese (Kimble 2005) and only large businesses were able to make use of such laws in their business plans because only large businesses could afford to hire corporate lawyers (Marks 1999) to interpret the laws and explain what they meant to their businesses (O’Brien 2006). (2) This research proposes that changes brought about by the Free Access to Law movement have made it possible for small businesses to research the internet for laws that are relevant to their particular industry. For example, websites such as AustLii, LexisNexis, Comlaw and FindLaw, contain legislation, case laws, and journal articles that are freely available to the public, and arguably, the Free Access to Law movement has obviated the need for any upfront or membership fees that were previously required to gain access to such materials (Marks 1999). However, this research does not define the meaning of ‘business law’ (Gibson & Fraser 2009; Corbin 2002; Adams et al. 2002), discuss ‘corporate governance’ (Redmond 2009; Ferrell et al. 2010), or identify what laws can or cannot be used in any…