Video Transcript:
I’m Neal Bookspan of Jaburg Wilk. I’m an attorney who helps businesses and business owners manage their legal risks.
Do I need an attorney if I’m buying or selling a business?
People definitely need attorneys when they are buying or selling a business. It is a very important transaction for the seller who may have owned the business and built it up over a lifetime or for the buyer who is buying someone’s business and needs to do the proper due diligence and I have a saying. It is “pay me now or pay me later” and by that I mean that it is less expensive to have an attorney help you buy or sell a business then it will be if you have to get involved in litigation over that purchase or sale of the business and more specifically what that means is that the retainer for the attorney to go and litigate over the business may be multiples of the money that was spent if you had had an attorney at the front end to help you.
In a dispute between business partners, won’t seeking a judicial dissolution hurt us both?
I do a lot of work that involves disputes between business owners or partners in closely held companies. In that situation, most people when you talk about judicial dissolution they feel that’s a step that’s too far. When you file a lawsuit or go to an arbitration, it is important to raise all the issues including judicial dissolution. In doing this practice area for in excess of twenty years, I’ve alleged judicial dissolution many, many times. I’ve never actually had a company be dissolved by the court or the parties yet.