Mediation is a private process where a neutral third person called a mediator facilitates a discussion of the issues at hand and helps you and the other party to potentially resolve the dispute through negotiation. Both you and the other party have an opportunity to describe the issues, discuss your interests and provide each other with information that may help to resolve the dispute.

As a child care provider, you are not only a business person but you are a key member of the community in which you work and live. This means that you must have a good working relationship with parents, neighbors, landlords and licensing personnel. In fact, most problems involving the law can be avoided by simply maintaining good relationships with other members of the community.

As a child care provider, you may encounter situations where you suspect or know that a child in your care is being abused or neglected. When situations like this arise, you must follow appropriate procedures to ensure that the child gets help and that you are complying with legal requirements.

Assisting family child care providers (“FCCPs”) with their tax returns generally raises the same issues as for all other home-based businesses, like proper proof of income and expense, separation of business and personal expenses, etc. The IRS and Congress have provided special rules for FCCPs, thereby recognizing the difficulty of separating personal expenses from business expenses in a family child care setting.

Neighbor disputes arise for a variety of reasons, some of which may relate to your child care business. As a family child care home provider you have several options for addressing these disputes or harassment that may include insults or obscenities directed at you, your family, your helpers, your parents, or even the children in your care, actions impeding the use of your home as a business, reporting you to Licensing, and other similar acts.

California State law requires individuals, partnerships and corporations to register a “Fictitious Business Name” (commonly known as a DBA – “doing business as”) if they operate a business and/or collect money under a name different from their legal surname(s) or corporation names.

License-exempt child care is child care that can operate legally without a license. While certain child care arrangements may qualify as license-exempt child care, there are policies and procedures that a license-exempt child care provider should follow in order to ensure the successful operation of his/her child care business and avoid potential legal problems.

State law does not automatically exempt a person from jury duty by reason of occupational status. Although you may be a sole proprietor of your business, you might still be …