The Family Business Planning Practice Group draws on the expertise of attorneys from the firm's Tax, Probate and Estate Planning Department, Business and Finance Department, and Labor Department to design and implement business succession plans that are tailored to the needs and desires of each individual client.
Business and Finance attorneys prepare operating agreements, shareholder agreements and voting trusts, purchase agreements, and employment agreements. Tax, Probate and Estate Planning attorneys design estate and gift plans and employee benefit arrangements.
In each case, we work closely with the family business and its outside advisors, including accountants, wealth managers, and insurance professionals.
Services that we provide include:
- Selecting the most advantageous entity to hold, manage, and transfer the family business, such as S and C corporations, limited liability companies, and partnerships.
- Designing a structure to accomplish the owner's specific goals (such as maintaining control, raising capital, avoiding outside owners, and providing for a smooth transition in ownership and management).
- Establishing a comprehensive estate plan that takes advantage of all available tax credits and exclusions, including the federal family business exclusion for qualifying businesses.
- Using family limited partnerships and other mechanisms for transferring equity while maintaining control and deferring or avoiding tax.
- Using life insurance and other assets to equalize the inheritances of children who will not be significant owners of the business with those who will own the business.
- Planning for retention of key employees who are not family members.
- Designing employment policies to facilitate compliance with applicable laws and to further promote the owner's business objectives.
- Assisting the owner in balancing the diverse interests and needs of different generations and in resolving intra-family conflicts.
- Preparing prenuptial and postnuptial agreements and providing advice in connection with the dissolution of a marriage or divorce in order to protect business interests and preserve family wealth.
