Legal help for owner-run companies, from the day you form the business to the day you sell it. We write contracts people can follow and resolve partner disputes before they become lawsuits.
Most of our business clients have fewer than fifty employees and no in-house lawyer. They call us when a contract lands on the desk, when a partner wants out, or when a buyer shows up with a letter of intent. We treat each of those as its own project with its own budget.
We also do the unglamorous preventive work: operating agreements that say what happens when an owner dies or leaves, vendor terms that match how you actually get paid, and a yearly check of the documents that run the company.
Whether it is a two-page contract or the sale of the company, the path is the same and the budget is agreed first.
We start with the documents you already have and a call about what you want the business to look like in five years.
You get a short memo that ranks the risks by cost and likelihood, with our recommendation marked clearly.
We draft or mark up the papers, negotiate with the other side, and keep you in every decision that matters.
Execution, filings, and a tidy digital binder of everything signed, so next year you can find it in a minute.
North Carolina does not require one, but without it the default rules decide what happens when one owner leaves, dies or stops working. Most owners dislike those defaults once they read them.
Most single-contract reviews are a flat fee agreed on the first call. Larger deals get a written estimate with a range and the assumptions behind it.
Usually not first. Many partner splits resolve through a negotiated buyout or mediation, which costs less and keeps the business running while you talk.
Composite examples from our business and neighboring practices. Details are invented.
Two co-owners of a small bakery wanted to split after eight years, and their only agreement was a handshake plus a shared bank account. We valued the business with an outside accountant, drafted a buyout paid over two years, and wrote a noncompete narrow enough for both sides to accept. One partner kept the recipes, the other kept the storefront, and nobody filed suit.
Read the matter
A line cook at a busy restaurant was paid a flat weekly rate that ignored the overtime he actually worked. We rebuilt his hours from posted schedules and text messages, calculated what wage law required, and presented the numbers to the owner’s counsel. The matter settled in mediation for the unpaid wages and part of his fees, and the kitchen’s pay practices changed.
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A retired teacher bought a hillside lot and learned a year later that her neighbor’s fence sat eleven feet inside her line. We ordered a fresh survey, read forty years of deeds, and found an easement that had been recorded against the wrong parcel. Rather than sue, both owners signed a boundary line agreement and split the cost of moving the fence.
Read the matter
Illustrative examples, past results do not predict future outcomes.
Business clients
We had a handshake partnership and a bad falling out. Maren sat both of us down, kept it civil, and had the buyout on paper within weeks.
Josiah rewrote our vendor terms so they matched how we actually invoice. Late payments dropped the next quarter and I finally understand my own contracts.
Selling the shop felt overwhelming. The checklist they gave us on day one kept me sane, and nothing surprised us at the closing table.
You speak with an attorney, not a call center. No obligation, and we tell you on that call whether we are the right fit.
Or we can call you
