Businesses & Transactions

Many business entities of all sizes in the San Francisco Bay Area utilize our services as the primary focus of our practice is business law. We are particularly known in the business law community for assisting small to medium-sized and closely held companies in and around Palo Alto and Silicon Valley with a wide range of business law matters and business transactions. Critical to this kind of assistance is taking the time to become acquainted with the principals in the business to ascertain their goals and understand the approaches that make them most comfortable. Through this process, we attempt to quickly and efficiently identify the key issues facing the business and structure cost effective strategies and solutions to address those issues.

Because of his longtime experience in the Bay Area, Jeff has developed an extensive network of attorneys who specialize in virtually every area of law relating to various forms of business work as well as other professionals such as such as accountants, tax experts, appraisers, brokers, mediators, arbitrators, and retired judges with whom he consults regularly so that his clients get the same kind of service offered by much bigger firms but at a substantially lower price.

We advise a broad cross section of individuals and business entities with their business law needs. Though it is impossible to give an exhaustive list of all the business law matters we handle, the following gives examples of the ways we assist our clients:

Planning and Forming Business Entities
-Assisting in picking the proper business entity and other business planning
-Consulting with tax experts as part of strategic planning
-Forming corporations, limited liability companies, proprietorships, partnerships, professional corporations and limited liability partnerships to operate a business
-Preparing all the necessary documents, permit applications, filings, and other documentation relevant to the formation
-Documenting relationships among owners including founders, shareholders, buy-sell, stock option, management, indemnity and similar agreements
-Assisting with employment agreements, employee handbooks and initial employment and labor law issues
-Drafting, reviewing, analyzing and negotiating commercial leases for premises upon which the business is conducted

Assisting in the Purchase or Sale of An Existing Business or Franchise
-Planning and executing purchases and sales of businesses and business entities including bulk sales, asset sales, stock sales, and franchise sales
-Advising on the purchase documents or franchise documents
-Drafting and revising purchase and sale documents
-Consulting with tax experts to plan properly for the purchase
-Coordinating with brokers and escrows to consummate the purchase or sale

Acting as Counsel for Business Entities in Their Ongoing Operations
-Advising about ongoing employment and labor matters including compliance with various state and federal employment regulations
-Consulting on and negotiating severance arrangements to avoid protracted employment-related disputes
-Counseling about consulting and independent contractor arrangements
-Drafting required documentation such as tax and administrative filings and records of transactions including shareholder and director minutes
-Counseling about a variety of transactions including selling stock, loans, leasing and purchasing property, transactions with customers, arrangements with vendors and suppliers, contracts with distributors and agents
-Drafting and negotiating commercial leases
-Drafting, reviewing, analyzing and negotiating commercial leases for premises upon which the business is conducted
-Advising about intellectual property, proprietary information and trade secret matters including non-disclosure and proprietary information agreements
-Negotiating and drafting a wide range of business law contracts and documents
-Helping clients with business entities that have been suspended or are otherwise out of compliance with California business law
-Advising about a broad range of disputes from the operation of the business particularly in using mediation and arbitration to avoid expensive litigation

Strategies and Arrangements to Expand Business Entities
-Advising clients in range of transactions to increase capitalization including stock offerings and lending arrangements
-Counsel clients in planning and executing joing ventures, strategic alliances, mergers, and acquisitions
-Drafting of detailed and comprehensive documents relating to mergers and acquisitions of all kinds

Termination of Business Entities
-Assisting in all forms of sales of assets and mergers and acquisitions where the entity disappears into another business entity
-Collaborating with tax experts to plan and execute the transactions in a manner most favorable to the client
-Drafting and handling all documents necessary to dissolve business entities