You’re sitting at your desk, slurping down a big mug of coffee, when the CEO stops by your door.  “Guess what,” she says. “We’re going to do a joint venture with Mega Corp! I need you and your team to get right on it.”  You say, “You’re [messing] with me, right?  Joint ventures are where good business ideas go to die.”  Well, you don’t say it, but you sure are thinking it because you know that most joint ventures never perform as expected, many severely underperform, and most terminate early because the parties cannot agree on some issue.  Regardless, joint ventures are not going away – CEO’s just seem to love them.   And when the business wants to move forward with a perfectly legal idea, in-house counsel fall in line and do their utmost to make the deal happen (and draft documents that help minimize problems down the road).   While it is impossible to consider every possible problem that might arise over the course of the joint venture, you can set up a process that will allow the parties to minimize potential issues.  How?  By spending a lot of time upfront thinking about the key considerations of putting the venture together.  This edition of “Ten Things” walks you through the basics of setting up a joint venture:

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