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Dedicated to legal succession planning. We will set up succession plans that will set up your business perfectly for its successful continuation.
Overview

At Dugalic & Landau, PC, we provide business planning legal services for both start-up businesses and established businesses. For clients who are setting up a new business, we understand the importance of business planning and work with our clients to understand the necessary steps in starting a business in order to simplify the business organization process. For all our business clients, we help those clients manage their complex business legal needs on an ongoing basis. We do this by working closely with our clients and their other advisors in order to ensure that their legal needs are integrated with their other business needs.

The law office of Dugalic & Landau, PC offers valuable business planning services. Call us today in order to speak with a business planning attorney about how implementing sound business strategies can help your business grow and prosper. Our business planning attorneys are experienced and knowledgeable in business planning.  Call today in order to speak directly with a business planning lawyer who will help you understand and implement a plan that will enable you to grow and protect your business.

Business Planning - Business Setup

Are you starting a new business? Do you currently operate a business as a sole proprietor or partnership? Are you concerned about the potential personal liability that could result from your business? Have you considered setting up a corporation or limited liability company to shield yourself from the liabilities of your business?

The form of a business affects every aspect of its operation. One of the biggest business decisions you will make when starting a business is the choice of entity. The formation of your business will affect your personal exposure to liability and your personal and business tax consequences. Tax planning is a major factor in entity selection. In most instances, our attorneys will work with your accountant to determine the choice of entity that will best meet your needs.

At Dugalic & Landau, PC we have experience handling all your business formation needs, whether you are an entrepreneur engaging in your first business venture, a small business considering reorganizing your business to set up for expansion, or a seasoned business person seeking to purchase or spin off a business.

We can assist with your business planning, advise you on your entity selection, and help you form your choice of entity, including the following:
 

  •  Sole proprietorship
  •  S-corporation
  •  C-corporation
  •  General Partnership
  •  Limited Partnership
  •  Limited liability company (LLC)
  •  Limited liability partnership (LLP)
  •  Franchises
  •  Business Trust

We can also assist you with all the derivative legal issues and documentation, including documents establishing the rights between parties, such as the following:

Operating agreements for an LLC: an agreement among limited liability company ("LLC") members governing the LLC's business, and member's financial and managerial rights and duties

Shareholder agreements for a corporation: an agreement amongst the shareholders of a company.

Partnership agreements: a voluntary contract between two or among more than two persons to place their capital, labor, and skills, and corporation in business with the understanding that there will be a sharing of the profits and losses between/among partners.

Buy-Sell agreements: a binding agreement between co-owners of a business that governs what happens if a co-owner dies or is otherwise forced to leave the business, or chooses to leave the business.

Finance documents: a legal document that institutions and businesses use to describe the securities they are offering for participants and buyers.

When considering what business entity is best, the owner and his or her advisor should first examine the anticipated operations of the proposed type of business entity, such as its duration, nature and amount of risk, financial requirements, potential income, ownership, size, and geographic scope.

A careful analysis of the probable operations involved in the undertaking helps in deciding whether to select an entity at all. However, the easing of certain tax rules, potential liability and availability of new forms of business entities have dramatically increased the use of business entities for most conceivable business or investment undertakings.

The following are issues the business owner and advisor should consider:

  •  Management structure 
  •  Liability Protection 
  •  Taxation 
  •  Ease of Transfer of Ownership 
  •  Estate Planning 
  •  Financing Convenience

The law office of Dugalic & Landau, PC offers valuable business planning services. Call us today in order to speak with a business planning attorney about how implementing sound business strategies can help your business grow and prosper. Our business planning attorneys are experienced and knowledgeable in business planning.  Call today in order to speak directly with a business planning lawyer who will help you understand and implement a plan that will enable you to grow and protect your business.

Business Planning – Business Succession Planning

What would happen to your business if one of the following events happened to you?

  •  Death
  •  Disability
  •  Divorce
  •  Bankruptcy
  •  Retirement
  •  Falling out with partners or employees


Would you be able to pass on the value of your business to your family? How will you retire? Do you, your partners, family members, and employees know what to do if any of the above events do arise?

More than 95 percent of American businesses are family-owned, with more than half of those owners having more than 50 percent of their total wealth tied up in their companies. Disputes and a dissolution of the business often follows when one of the aforementioned events take place without an articulated business succession plan in place. More than 70 percent of family-owned businesses do not survive the transition from founder to second generation. In most cases, the "killer" is taxes or family discord, both issues that a good family business succession plan will cover.

At Dugalic & Landau, PC, our business succession planning attorneys help business owners identify potential events that could be detrimental to their business and we help business owners put a business succession plan in place to address these events should they ever arise. Some of the business succession plans we often help business owners create are:

  •  Buy-sell agreements between owners
  •  Plans for continuing a family business
  •  Exit strategies for retiring owners

Having these types of business succession plans in place allow all the parties involved to agree in advance on how the parties are going to proceed upon the occurrence of certain triggering events.

The law office of Dugalic & Landau, PC offers valuable business succession planning services. Call us today in order to speak with a business succession planning attorney about how implementing sound business exit strategies can help you grow, protect and transfer your business when needed. Our business succession planning attorneys are experienced and knowledgeable in business succession planning.  Call today in order to speak directly with a business planning lawyer who will help you understand and implement a plan that will enable you to grow, protect and transfer your business when needed.

Why a business succession plan is important?

Many of our estate planning clients own "family" businesses where planning can affect the financial welfare of several generations. A succession plan for the family business must be developed and coordinated with the estate plan of the business owner. An integrated plan is essential to the continued operational and financial stability of a family business and to ensure that the value of the business will pass in a manner that will not give rise to avoidable taxes or disputes. In many cases, the integrated plan must include planning solutions for the spouse and children who work outside the family business to ensure they are adequately provided for.

The law office of Dugalic & Landau, PC offers valuable business succession planning services. Call us today in order to speak with a business succession planning attorney about how implementing sound business exit strategies can help you grow, protect and transfer your business when the time arrives. Our business succession planning attorneys are experienced and knowledgeable in business succession planning.  Call today in order to speak directly with a business planning lawyer who will help you understand and implement a plan that will enable you to grow, protect and transfer your business when the time arrives

Management, Ownership and Taxes

Think of business succession planning as broken into three main issues; management, ownership, and taxes.

It's important to realize that management and ownership are not necessarily one and the same. You may decide, for instance, to transfer management of your business to just one of your children but transfer equal shares of business ownership to all your children, whether they're actively involved in operating the business or not.

The taxes component of succession planning looks at the minimization of taxes upon death. There are asset transfer tax strategies that will help you do this, such as freezing the value of your interest in the company while you transfer ownership to your children. For example, by reorganizing your corporation to exchange your common shares in the business for preferred shares with a fixed value equal to the common-share value, you can pass all future capital appreciation and income tax liability on that future appreciation to your children while you retain control, and access to the current value of the business, in effect freezing the corporation.  Our business succession planning lawyers specialize in business succession planning and can provide invaluable advice about these tax strategies.

For many family businesses, family is the primary emphasis of business succession planning. Whether you're thinking about the future management of your business, how ownership is going to be passed along, or taxes, you won't be able to help thinking about how your decisions will affect your family.

At Dugalic & Landau, PC, we urge our clients to anticipate and plan for the future by fully discussing the relationships between owners, partners, family members and key employees and by dealing with the practical realities of these relationships. This strategy ensures a smooth transition of the company upon death, disability or retirement, prevents discord, and helps secure the success of the business into future generations.

The law office of Dugalic & Landau, PC offers valuable business succession planning services. Call us today in order to speak with a business succession planning attorney about how implementing sound business exit strategies can help you grow, protect and transfer your business when needed. Our business succession planning attorneys are experienced and knowledgeable in business succession planning.  Call today in order to speak directly with a business planning lawyer who will help you understand and implement a plan that will enable you to grow, protect and transfer your business when needed.

Business Planning- Contracts

A. Contract Drafting

Do you do business with your customers on a handshake deal? Is the only evidence of your transactions with your customers an invoice or a work order? What rules are in place if your customer decides not to pay? What happens when your customer forgets the terms of the deal?

It does not matter if the deal is large or small. It is important to have a contract for all transactions even if the contract is a simple one. 

At Dugalic & Landau, PC, we help our clients create customized contracts between their businesses and their customers, clients, and vendors. By creating contracts specific to our clients’ business needs, our clients benefit from contracts that match the actual terms of the agreement. 

Having the right type of contract is important. We often help our clients create simple, contracts containing the essential terms of the deal along with the necessary legal protections. On the other hand, when the deal is complex, we help our clients analyze all the issues and create contracts that address all those issues. In addition, we work on behalf of our clients to negotiate and draft contracts ranging from arrangements with customers and employees, joint ventures, and license agreements, to deferred compensation, phantom stock, and franchise agreements. We also draft and negotiate commercial leases for office, R&D, retail, and warehouse space. As our clients' trusted business advisor, our business planning attorneys craft straightforward documents that clearly and accurately reflect the intent of the parties, minimizing uncertainty and misunderstanding while offering valuable insight into areas of concern and opportunity.

The law office of Dugalic & Landau, PC offers valuable business planning services. Call us today in order to speak with a business planning attorney about how implementing sound business strategies can help your business grow and prosper. Our business planning attorneys are experienced and knowledgeable in drafting contracts for all-sized businesses.  Call today in order to speak directly with a business planning lawyer who will help you understand and implement a plan that will enable you to grow and protect your business.

Assistance with Any Business Contract

  •  Purchase and sale agreements 
  •  Equipment contracts 
  •  Real estate contracts 
  •  Lease agreements 
  •  Employee agreements
  •  Franchise agreements
  •  Loan agreements
  •  Supply agreements
  •  Commercial leases
  •  Confidentiality agreements
  •  Mergers and acquisitions

The law office of Dugalic & Landau, PC offers valuable business planning services. Call us today in order to speak with a business planning attorney about how implementing sound business strategies can help your business grow and prosper. Our business planning attorneys are experienced and knowledgeable in business planning.  Call today in order to speak directly with a business planning lawyer who will help you understand and implement a plan that will enable you to grow and protect your business.


B. Contract Review

Have you ever signed a contract without reading the terms and conditions? Did you know what you were agreeing to? Did the terms of the contract actually match the terms of the deal? Did you agree only to sue in Alaska? Did you agree that the other party’s liability was capped at $50?

All too often contracts are signed without the terms of the contract being read. It is usually not until a problem arises and it is too late that the parties care about the terms found in the contract. 

At Dugalic & Landau, PC, we provide quick efficient contract review so that our clients can finalize their deal. Upon completing our review of the contract, we provide our clients with a summary of our thoughts and concerns and provide suggestions regarding how to proceed with the deal. 

The law office of Dugalic & Landau, PC offers valuable business planning services. Call us today in order to speak with a business planning attorney about how implementing sound business strategies can help your business grow and prosper. Our business planning attorneys are experienced and knowledgeable in business planning.  Call today in order to speak directly with a business planning lawyer who will help you understand and implement a plan that will enable you to grow and protect your business.
 

Let's discuss your plan today.