It’s not easy to hold shareholders liable for a company’s debts. In fact, lawyers fail at it about 80 percent of the time, said Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton partner Javier Lopez.

“Anybody can go on Sunbiz.org and create an LLC in probably 20 minutes, and you can benefit from protection of the company,” the Coral Gables lawyer said. “That’s what the law wants: to be able to protect yourself from individual liability.”