Business, Corporate, and Commercial

Just as being proactive about your personal health makes abundant good sense, so too does being proactive about your business’s legal health. Legal issues are an inseparable part of business. At any stage of your business’s life, we can help. We recognize not every business owner can afford to, or desires to, have a full-time attorney on staff or retainer. However, we believe there is value and efficiency in relationships and familiarity. And, we believe respect and credibility are earned. Wherever your business is at in its life-cycle, we would welcome the opportunity to begin a relationship with you and to begin to earn your trust.

Entity Selection, Formation, and Maintenance

Part of our approach to all legal issues is appreciating the importance of beginning with the end in mind. This is especially important when choosing the legal structure for your business. Often, especially in the small business context, this decision seems to get short shrift. This may spring from a desire to minimize costs or a misperception that, because the administrative act of filing formation papers can seem to be fairly straightforward, it isn’t worth “wasting money on a lawyer”. Sadly, we’ve seen many situations in which an ounce of prevention would have been worth a pound of cure. Fully considering the current and future needs of your business and setting things up properly on the front end likely involves considering and drafting operational documents and transferring or properly titling assets. Equally as important is understanding what a particular form of legal entity cannot do for you. As is usually the case, context matters.

Contract Assistance

The fundamental genesis of any transaction is an agreement regarding an exchange of value. That is a contract. Every transaction your business ever will be involved in, no matter how material, involves a contract. Some are of comparatively low value or are discrete or otherwise simple. Some have the potential to make or break your business. Regardless, memories fade and situations change. As Robert Frost put it, “good fences make good neighbors”. Good contracts make good fences. And, contracts can take many forms. Whether on a general, forward-looking basis, such as drafting forms and templates, or negotiating the terms of a one-off engagement, we can help you think through the things that really matter to you, to express them in a clear and effective way, and negotiate them with your counterparty. Or, if you have a situation developing and need to understand your rights, risks, or obligations, we can help.

Transactional Matters

Significant transactions often are forks in the road. They may involve buying or selling all or part of a company, a business, or a package of assets. We believe these situations are best handled with creative thinking and an open mind. Drawing from our years of implementing complex, multi-jurisdictional, international corporate restructuring transactions, we can help you bring that approach to bear on your significant transactional matters.

Business Disputes

All action in life involves risk. This is no less true in business. No matter how careful you are, there will be times in the life of your business when you reach an impasse with someone. When these things happen, however, you are not limited only to a scorched earth campaign of destruction. These situations can nevertheless present opportunities. But, that’s generally only true if you approach the situation with that goal in mind. Regardless of the specifics, we can help you to understand the issues, the law, and the reasonable alternatives. We can help you to decide which path is most likely to lead you to a desired or acceptable outcome. And, we can help you to move down that path, whatever it may be.