Episode One: Corporate Divorce – Preventing and Managing the Break-Up of a Business Partnership
Episode 21 | Where There's A Will, There's A Way
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Buy-Sell Agreements: A Conversation With Expert and Author Paul Hood
Buy-Sell Agreements and Their Place in an Asset Protection Plan
Both corporate legal work and estate planning may play key roles, but different ones, in the long-term success of construction and real estate companies. Originally published in the Oregon Daily Journal of Commerce -...more
Family-owned businesses can face challenges around share ownership and potential sales. Proper planning, including documenting board membership, setting share transfer rules and establishing a framework for sales, can help...more
For many family-owned businesses, the future is built on relationships, trust, and shared history. But when it comes to succession planning, even the most tightly knit families often delay the conversation. As corporate...more
What is business succession planning, and why is this an important and essential component of forming any new entity or protecting an existing business interest? Business succession planning protects everything you’re...more
Why should every business owner consider or revisit business succession planning at this time of year? The simple answer: Business succession planning protects owner and company alike. It protects all of the hard work and...more
For generations, Wisconsin cranberry farms, like potato farms, have been more than businesses—they’ve been legacies. Passed down through families, these farms are rooted in tradition, hard work, and deep community ties. But...more
Balancing numbers and relationships when business and family intersect. Family-owned businesses occupy a unique and vital space in the economy. They combine entrepreneurial drive with deep personal commitment and long-term...more
For restaurant owners, business succession planning is crucial to ensuring a smooth transition of ownership while protecting the legacy of their establishment. Whether the goal is to pass the restaurant to family, sell to a...more
Experienced trusts and estates attorneys consistently observe how proper planning can mean the difference between a thriving legacy and a fragmented enterprise. For family-owned life insurance businesses, the stakes are...more
Across all industries, private companies, family offices, and their owners and management teams face rapidly evolving challenges, opportunities, and risks in the dynamic environment that is 2025. Here are 11 issues that...more
With apologies to the pseudonymous children’s book author Watty Piper, this is the story of a humble buy-sell provision in a family-owned LLC’s operating agreement that temporarily ran out of steam in the lower court, only to...more
Most people take steps to maintain good health, including scheduling annual checkups with their doctors to confirm there are no immediate or long-term health concerns. This checkup could include a stress test, which lets you...more
Business divorces take place in all types of private companies, including those owned and operated by family members. But families that are willing to engage in thoughtful planning can head off some of the internal conflicts...more
The era of the old-fashioned general partnership long ago petered out, largely displaced by subchapter S corporations and, in the last few decades, limited liability companies, both of which allow pass-through taxation...more
Most closely held businesses, whether organized as a C or S corporation, LLC or partnership, have (or should have) a buy-sell agreement. A buy-sell agreement addresses what happens to an owner’s interest in the business when...more
Family members who enter into a private business together are taking on double risk. They face the same types of challenges that all owners and investors face in operating/investing in a business, but they are also exposed to...more
Thoughtful succession planning can pave the way for a smooth transition and a thriving future for a company and its stakeholders. Here are a few techniques that business owners should consider....more
A year and a half ago, we blogged about a decision in which Bronx County Supreme Court Justice Llinet M. Rosado ruled that a shareholder’s alleged stock transfer through a bequest in his last will and testament was...more
Business owners: Now’s the time to revisit buy-sell agreements - If you own an interest in a closely held business, a buy-sell agreement should be a critical component of your estate and succession plans. These...more
Not Selling Your Business This Year? Beginning shortly before the House Ways and Means Committee released its version of the President’s Build Back Better plan, several posts on this blog have explored the uptick in M&A...more
This is the final article in our series on selling the family business. Our previous articles include advance planning, preliminary diligence, marketing, letters of intent, indemnification provisions, backstopping the deal,...more
This article discusses the family business succession planning process and the changes we can expect to see in the remaining months of 2020, including the impacts of COVID-19 and the November elections....more
Family-owned business shareholders often enter into buy-sell agreements that provide the terms on which an owner can or must sell his or her shares. Such agreements usually restrict an owner’s ability to sell shares to third...more
Buy-sell agreements are critical when dealing with a closely held business and yet often ignored or given short shrift by business owners. Life insurance is an effective tool that business owners can use to implement the...more
IN BRIEF - The sale of a family business or any business with multiple owners creates potential conflicts among the owners as well as potential issues for the attorney representing the sellers. Among these issues are...more