While our focus at the Oakley Law Group is on estate planning and closely related practice areas, we are frequently asked about issues involving business planning. As an additional resource for our clients, we maintain a list of practitioners who we feel confident will provide sound counsel and legal representation in this area. Should you need a referral, please feel free to call our office and we will be happy to provide a few recommendations.
If you are like many of the business owners we counsel, your business represents one of your most valuable assets. This means a truly effective estate plan depends upon having an equally effective business plan in place. Your plan must take into account the possibility of extraordinary growth, while at the same time provide protection against downturns in the economy or changes to the business landscape. It must also shield your personal and family’s assets should something happen to the business itself. In addition, your plan must protect your business from a wide range of potential threats. These can include frivolous lawsuits; the inability of loved ones to access assets if you pass away suddenly or become incapacitated; the manner and timing of your exit from the business (especially if there are concerns about your children or their spouses); tax minimization; how to deal with partners, other owners and employees; and many more.
A good business planning attorney can design an effective business plan to help you at start-up, exit and at every stage in between. He or she can work with your existing executives, CPAs, attorneys and other key advisors to develop a comprehensive, highly effective plan, and provide some or all of the following services:
- Company formation
- Choice of business entity
- Structure of business entity
- Purchase or sale of a business
- Ownership issues
- General legal counsel to businesses and individual owners
- Coordination of personal, estate and business plans
- Tax planning
- Reorganization and restructuring
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Shareholder control agreements
- Voting agreements
- Buy-sell agreements
- Shareholder and partner disputes
- Sales and disposition of businesses
- Dissolutions
- Succession planning
- Recapitalization
- Asset protection