Author Archives: Rick Massey

About Rick Massey

Rick Massey is an attorney who lives and practices in Eastern Missouri. Rick lives with his wife and their amazing little girl in Lake St. Louis. His professional passion is helping people and small businesses nurture and protect the lives they have worked so hard to build.

Replacing Our National Pride with a Victim Mentality

In the 1999 movie “Cider House Rules” based on John Irving’s 1985 novel of the same title, one of the leading characters, Homer, is asked to read a set of typewritten rules that are tacked to a post where the … Continue reading

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Are You Trapped by a Non-Compete Agreement With Your Last Employer?

Most employment contracts and many consulting services agreements from larger companies include non-compete provisions. These are intended to one degree or another, to keep the employee or contractor from competing against the company in its own marketing space after he … Continue reading

Posted in Contract Review & Drafting | Tagged | 7 Comments

Are Small Businesses Going the Way of the Drive-In Movie?

We as a society have made a god of capitalism. We placed the capitalistic ideal ahead of people when we granted full legal rights of persons to corporations even though they can never be held accountable in the same way people are. We sold our collective soul as human beings when we allowed investors to operate hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages, military operations, and even prisons where life and death decisions about human beings are made in an environment where human life has no “fair market” value. Continue reading

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Homeless in a Land of Milk and Honey

My goal for this post has always been to provide something useful that may help ordinary people in their struggle to get ahead in a world dominated and controlled by wealthy corporations.  But sometimes you just have to rant.  I … Continue reading

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Of the Persons, By the Persons, For the Persons

Once in a great while, mankind makes an amazing discovery that does as much for the peasants as for those in power. Until our generation, the last really big such innovation in the West was the invention of moveable type. … Continue reading

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Jury Duty: 3 Things You Are Not Supposed to Know

The proliferation of articles and lobbying efforts demanding “tort reform” and the rapidly expanding practice of denying citizens this basic constitutional right through binding arbitration show how big of a threat the corporate world and the insurance industry perceive this fundamental right to be. But in a democracy, jurors should have a right to know the secrets of how the sausage making process works. Continue reading

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Should Small Businesses Fear the Healthcare Reform Act? Some Pros and a Possible Con

Since the passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) there has been a lot of noise about how all of this will impact small business. For the most part, the noise consists of warnings hat it will hurt small business with very little specific information about exactly how. But the potential negative impact on small business is probably greatly exaggerated. Continue reading

Posted in Protecting Small Business | Tagged | 3 Comments

How Entrepreneurs Can Make Money Without Making Big Mistakes

So you’ve done all of the right things to get your new business up and running.  You have chosen a good business name that promotes your branding in a memorable and unique way.  You have googled the name and ran … Continue reading

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What is the Least I Have to do Before I Hang Out My Shingle?

If you are starting your own business, you are a gambler.  You know that most small businesses fail.  But you also know many of them do very well.  You understand that there are no guarantees in life.  And you have decided … Continue reading

Posted in Protecting Small Business | Tagged | 12 Comments

After September 11, 2001 the President Knew What We Must Do: Go Shopping

I am more saddened than disgusted every time I pull up to an intersection, look up and see the Orwellian camera staring back at me. More troubling than the hypocrisy of the claims that these “telescreens” are there to save our … Continue reading

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