If you ask your attorney to enumerate possible disaster scenarios every time you make a decision relating to your business I'd guess you might decide that the whole thing was not worth the risk.

This is a straw man argument, and the type that can only appeal to a company wanting to make poor, ill-informed risk management decisions.

No business can eliminate all risk, but some risks are unnecessary and easily eliminated. Serving alcohol to employees creates a significant amount of potential legal liability (it could literally bankrupt your company) but it is hard to reasonably and objectively argue that the potential liabilities are outweighed by any of the potential benefits.

Assuming you are not operating dangerous machinery are you likely to be sued for simply allowing alcohol to be consumed? I can see that you might be held liable for some other problem of which alcohol might be a contributing factor but simply eliminating alcohol may well not solve that problem anyway.

The potential benefits of allowing responsible alcohol consumption might be more than you think, if it helps provide a relaxed atmosphere where people want to go to work and are less likely to jump ship to your competitor for a marginal pay increase.

> Assuming you are not operating dangerous machinery are you likely to be sued for simply allowing alcohol to be consumed?

Providing alcohol to your employees or permitting them to consume alcohol on the job or at a company-sponsored event creates a whole host of potential liabilities. Here are a couple of real-world examples:

http://www.riskandinsurance.com/story.jsp?storyId=533353814

http://www.mmdnewswire.com/faapuna-mac-manu-mahoney-law-grou...

If you believe that alcohol is a good way to create a "relaxed atmosphere" let me assure you: there's nothing relaxing about watching your insurance premiums skyrocket, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on attorneys, paying millions of dollars in damages and/or living with the fact that you were involved in an incident during which someone was seriously hurt or lost his or her life.

Lawsuits are filed every day, has there been a ruling that just by serving alcohol they were liable? Or perhaps they are liable due to obvious negligence similar to how a bar can be found liable after a DUI if they over-served someone?

It is interesting that there doesn't seem to be the lawsuit worry or even the worry about "living with the fact that you were involved in an incident during which someone was seriously hurt or lost his or her life" at European companies.

There was an interesting ruling in California a few months ago[1] and you don't need to look too hard to find cases in which an employer was found liable or settled[2].

Keep in mind that when a lawsuit is filed, the strength of your defense doesn't matter if you don't have the funds to pay a quality attorney. In many kinds of cases, you can easily rack up tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills before you even begin to address substantive matters, and plaintiff's counsel has no incentive to approach the matter in a fashion that reduces your costs.

[1] http://www.xperthr.com/news/marriott-ruling-highlights-risks...

[2] http://www.tprglaw.com/wolowsky-v-bum-steer-restaurants-inc

For every event like this there are thousands where people have a good time. Just don't let your employees drink-drive.

If "ask your attorney" is good policy, it's good policy regardless of whether the topic is one that you find intuitively naughty or one you find intuitively innocuous.

One potential benefit - you signal to employees that your workplace is fun. Many growing companies will die if they don't get the right talent. Compare the large risk of getting the wrong people to the tiny risk of an employee getting drunk and raping/murdering everyone, and the calculus is far from clear.

If what you said is true, why do many extremely large corporations serve beer at company events, and sometimes even stock it in the office?

Are their attorneys incompetent?

My SO is an attorney so I'll respond by relaying a couple of things I hear first-hand on a regular basis:

1. Many clients ignore the advice they're given.

2. Big companies spend lots of money settling lawsuits that could have been completely avoided.

A six or seven-figure lawsuit, which may require tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend, is an inconvenience at a billion dollar company. It can be the end of a startup or small business.

Of course they ignore it. If they took every counsel opinion to the bank, they'd almost never sign a contract.

I know criticizing attorneys is a fashionable pastime, but your comment is neither informed nor creative. I know it may come as a shock, but attorneys make a lot more money structuring, negotiating and drafting agreements than they do advising clients not to enter into them.

This said, the type of advice that I was referring to pertains to legal compliance and best practices in the context of running a business. Example:

1. An employer is advised by counsel that it must or should keep certain records.

2. It, for whatever reason, fails to do so.

3. As a result of its failure, it is fined, or is less able to defend itself in a lawsuit.

This sort of thing happens. Every single day. The only thing being taken to the bank is money that employers never had to part with in the first place.

I'm not criticizing attorneys. I like attorneys. I don't think you're reading my comments very carefully.

So, I have the experience of routinely seeing the opinions of attorneys on a whole range of issues, and while I'm sure you're right and they could come up with any number of hazards, if we made our decisions based on attorney worst case scenarios, we would never do anything.

It's funny because your response is very hostile, but we actually agree. I see how fraught alcohol in the workplace is. It's clear to me how it could cause problems. I have what I think is a fairly deep appreciation for the kinds of people that I work with, and I can make considered judgements based on that understanding.

But I definitely don't have a one-size-fits-all prescription for how to handle it. Other people on this thread talk about the glasses of beer they drink in meetings in the afternoon; I followed some teammates down on one of their smoke breaks and asked about it, and they were unanimous in judging that atmosphere frat-y. If you're routinely drinking substantially during the workday, I'm worried about your culture too. But: maybe you understand your team better than I do.

If I was in an office full of people I'd only known for 3-9 months, I'd probably be on the "no drinking in the office" side of this issue too.

Also, the idea (which I'm getting from this thread) that beer is an expected perk of startup dev jobs makes me a little queasy.

I can see there being a liability to the firm if someone leaves the office drunk and wraps their car around a tree. Maybe that's why "Beer at the office" seems to have less resistance in NYC? Maybe it's also the high price of alcohol here too?

For better or worse, if I want to grab a beer with a co-worker to talk about something informal, there's something to be said for doing it out of the building. Of course it helps that there are half a dozen spots within 2 blocks.