BUSINESS AND COMMERCIAL LAW

Whether you are registering a simple DBA, forming a partnership or incorporating as an LLC, choosing the right entity is one of the easiest ways to protect yourself early in the process. The way in which your business is formed will determine important details, such as how taxes are paid and personal liability of the founders.

Business formation is a necessary step and our attorneys offer advice to help you determine the proper structure for your emerging business, advising on formation, governance, and operational requirements for the various entity types. Our experience across a broad range of industries and intimate knowledge of the different legal entities works to ensure that you form the business in a way that will best suit your needs.

We provide personal, tailored solutions for small-mid size businesses, offering the service and security of in-house counsel, but on a personalized level to meet your needs. We make it our business to know your business, partnering with you on the key aspects of your business’s operation, ensuring that you maintain compliance with the controlling rules and regulations for your industry.

Whether you are a small business owner, a board member or an executive officer, our team provides counsel on the legal issues facing businesses today. Our goal is to provide sound advice that will help you reduce your risk and maximize your return while minimizing disruptions to your business.

Businesses often face complex challenges and disputes, which require experienced litigators who understand their clients’ industries and business concerns. Our Business and Commercial Law team efficiently handles commercial disputes while providing practical, efficient, and cost-effective solutions tailored to our clients’ needs.

Our team has represented clients in commercial disputes and lawsuits involving claims for breach of contract, unfair and deceptive trade practices, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, interference with contracts and economic advantage, breaches of non-compete and other employment agreements. We have also represented clients in internal business disputes, derivative shareholder actions, dissolutions, and business disruption claims.

Our attorneys have represented clients in disputes and lawsuits involving breach of contract claims, unfair and deceptive trade practices, fraud, non-competition agreements, employment contracts and claims, liens and construction issues, insurance coverage issues, business insurance claims, real estate claims, shareholder and partnership disputes, business and partnership dissolutions, and fire and business disruption claims. Representative cases involving business and contract disputes include:

• Breach of commercial contracts
• Breach of real estate contracts
• Claims on behalf of defrauded investors
• Constructive fraud claims concerning development of new product
• Representation of employers and employees regarding efforts to enforce non- competition agreements.
• Business dissolution
• Shareholder disputes involving closely-held businesses.
• Franchise contract disputes

Our Business and Commercial Law team provides a wide variety of transactional services, meeting all of your business’s needs. We have extensive experience in contract drafting and negotiation, to ensure our clients’ goals are met and to reduce the potential for future issues by accurately memorializing the contracting parties’ agreement. Our diligence and precision in contract preparation and negotiation minimizes the risk arising from contract disputes in your day to day operations.

Some of the transactions we regularly complete for our clients are:

• Purchase and Sale Agreements
• Stock Purchase Agreements
• Buy-Sell Agreements
• Employment Contracts
• Independent Contractor Agreements
• Nondisclosure and Confidentiality Agreements
• Non-Compete Agreements

Cyber threats, including data protection and responses to data breaches, are now a constant focus for organizations of all types and sizes, including our own. Our attorneys understand these risks because we have written the coverage for self-insureds and insurance carriers. We help ensure that each type of insurance policy is well-coordinated with the other insurance you have already purchased, or plan on purchasing, to help avoid gaps in coverage, eliminate duplicate coverage and potentially reduce your insurance costs.

We offer three distinct services in the area of Drone Law:

• Liability stemming from incidents involving the use of an unmanned aerial vehicle;
• Drone Coverage policies to protect insureds from potential exposure; and,
• Drone Regulation to assist municipalities and businesses in obtaining the necessary permits and ensure the carefully considered use of unmanned aerial systems for the benefit of society.

Visit our Cyber Liability and Drone Law page for more information. 

Our Business and Commercial Law team is well-versed in the employment law issues faced by our business clients. We regularly advise and advocate for clients of all sizes on a broad spectrum of employment law issues, from reviewing employee handbooks for compliance with the applicable rules and regulations to representing employers in investigations by the EEOC, NCDOL, and other administrative agencies.

We work closely with our Employment Law team to ensure our business clients receive the benefit of our firm’s expertise in all of our services.

Our team knows that intellectual property is a valuable business asset, one which we help our clients protect in an aggressive yet cost-efficient manner. We have experience handling intellectual property litigation involving trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets in state and federal courts.

Our business clients routinely require legal counsel both as landlords and tenants of commercial property. We routinely assist our clients with their commercial leasing transactions, from negotiating and drafting lease agreements and other related documents to providing guidance with navigating more complex issues such as air rights and environmental problems.