Skilled Negotiators For Fair Partnership And Shareholder Agreements
Business partners, professionals, friends and family members frequently enter into business ventures together with common goals and aspirations. At the outset, business partners typically see eye-to-eye and agree on the initial strategy for business operations. The owners work hard to make a business grow and generally benefit from this hard work.
As time goes by, however, challenges, disagreements within management, among partners and shareholders can arise, threatening the stability of the business. Internal disputes can become disruptive and result in costly litigation. The conflict can demoralize the organization, stifle growth, and significantly deplete the company’s assets. Fortunately, many of these problems can be alleviated — if not entirely avoided — with a well-written shareholder or partnership agreement.
When small and medium-sized businesses in the Atlanta metro and surrounding areas need help ensuring the success of their partnership or shareholder agreements, they turn to the trusted and experienced legal team at Jones & Walden LLC. We are well-known for our ability to successfully handle a range of complex business matters, including the drafting and maintaining of partnership and shareholder agreements as well as resolving disputes efficiently and effectively when they do arise.
Our clients come to us because we have the same diverse legal backgrounds and experience found at larger firms, but with the attention to detail and personalized attention you generally only find at a smaller firm.
Understanding Shareholder Agreements
It’s important to note that a shareholder agreement differs from the corporation’s bylaws. Bylaws contain the terms of corporate governance for the day-to-day operations of the business. A shareholder agreement is a contract between the shareholders setting out their relationship with one another and their respective rights in the event of a dispute or other occurrences such as death, disability or insolvency.
A comprehensive shareholder agreement (known as an operating agreement in the case of a limited liability company) allows the business to run smoothly and should be the foundation of any business with multiple owners.
For instance, the agreement might prohibit one owner from selling their shares to a third party without first offering them to the other owners. Without such a provision, the remaining owners could find themselves as co-owners with an inexperienced or undesirable shareholder. Shareholder agreements are critically important to avoid such situations and minimize adverse consequences of any future disputes.
Equally important is the retention of an attorney familiar with these agreements who can tailor the document to fit the needs and the structure of the business. Like other corporate governance documents, shareholder agreements are not “one-size-fits-all.” Business owners should rarely, if ever, attempt to create the shareholder agreement without legal guidance. Using a form agreement purchased or obtained from an online legal document provider can be devastating for the business owners in the future.
We Can Address All Your Legal Needs
When you work with Jones & Walden LLC, you’ll have an entire team of lawyers at your disposal, each with a unique background in various areas of law, which allows you to address a wide range of business law matters and issues without having to go to other law firms.
In addition to creating client-specific shareholder and LLC operating agreements, our attorneys counsel clients on a wide range of other issues, including:
- The rights and obligations of owners, officers and directors
- Corporate formalities, procedures and compliance, voting rights, resolutions, and related issues of corporate governance
- Conflict resolution, including negotiation, mediation and arbitration
- Unfair or illegal practices, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, conversion and unfair competition
- Intellectual property rights, confidentiality agreements, restrictive covenants (such as noncompetition clauses), trade secret protection, and nondisclosure agreements
- Employment questions such as employment agreements, compensation, pension benefits, stock plans, policy manuals, wrongful termination and severance packages
- Corporate restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, stock sales and purchases, asset sales and purchases, and corporate takeovers
- Interpretation and enforcement of partnership, membership and shareholder agreements
- Insolvency, bankruptcy, corporate restructuring and resolving commercial debts
Successfully Resolving Partnership And Shareholder Disputes
Even the best laid plans are not immune to disputes between partners and shareholders. At Jones & Walden LLC, we understand this as well as what’s at stake if business owners do not address these issues directly, quickly and effectively.
Our team of attorneys have decades of litigation experience and are adept at walking businesses through the oftentimes complex business litigation process. We take a detail-oriented, personalized approach to reviewing the case at hand to create solutions that are truly in your company’s best interests.
Talk To Our Team Of Experienced Business Law Attorneys
At Jones & Walden LLC, we help Georgia businesses make smart decisions regarding their company’s operation and best interests. We achieve this by putting a team of highly dedicated and experienced lawyers available to answer any question, offer options and solutions that make sense for the situation at hand and trustworthy guidance from start to finish.
If you would like to schedule a consultation at our Atlanta office where you can discuss your legal needs with someone on our team, we encourage you to call us at 678-701-9235 or send us a message using our online contact form.