Posts Tagged ‘Business Law’

I have written in the past about the importance of a well written contract, but as my litigation practice expands I am constantly reminded about how important this is. The importance of not only including all of the legal boilerplate, but also making sure the specifics of dispute resolution are ironed out is paramount.
While [...]

There are many situations where two existing businesses, or two just starting entrepreneurs want to jointly take on an endeavor, but do not want to be so tied to each other as to be the same entity. This is where a joint venture can come in handy. It creates a legally binding relationship, and if [...]

Often, when a company is looking to acquire another business, it looks at all of its gleaming equipment and its wonderful balance sheet as the reason to purchase the company, but in reality all of that success is probably more tied to the employees that work there then the systems or equipment associated with the [...]

This is a question that is frequently asked, or thought of, even if it is not verbalized, by my clients. The lawyerly answer is because language is an imperfect medium to describe complex thoughts, ideas, and meanings. There are vagaries to every word, and every sentence written.  However, a better way to explain it may [...]

What is an ESOP? An ESOP is exactly what it sounds like, an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, the employees literally hold the stock to the company. The better questions are how do you go about implementing an ESOP? and what are the benefits? While a small percentage of ESOPs (which get most of the news [...]

Everybody hates to pay taxes, but Small Business owners seem to hate it the most. Small businesses will go to great lengths, both legally and illegally to hide their income from the IRS, and thus have a lower tax bill each year. While this may seem ideal for the present, is this practice hamstringing your [...]

To the unsuspecting business, there are a surprising amount of consumer protection laws in Wisconsin, especially relating to penalties from a business. Businesses regularly get themselves into hot water by imposing sanctions on consumers without taking those laws into account, the consequences can be dire and expensive. A recent Wisconsin Appellate case James Cook et [...]

It is probably relatively obvious how to find an attorney, open the yellow pages or jump on Google and you will have thousands to choose from. The title of this post should be “how to find a GOOD attorney in Milwaukee?”
The first thing to realize is that a good attorney for one person, is [...]

If you are looking to start a business in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, or already own a business in the Wauwatosa or Milwaukee area, you might think, “I can save some money on using contracts and business formation services from an on-line website.” And this is true, you will certainly get a cheap alternative. Of course, as [...]

The short answer- Yes; but you can only recover damages of up to $5,000 plus statutory attorney’s fees ($250-$500) and court costs. A recent decision in the Wisconsin Court of Appeals Winkler v. Spaman Wholesale confirmed as much when it denied the defendant’s motion to vacate the default judgment for $5,000 because the demand in [...]

LLCs in Wisconsin have become the entity de-jour for new businesses in Milwaukee and the rest of the state. The real strength of the LLC is its ease to set up and maintain and its versatility. 
An LLC provides all of the liability protection of a Corporation. The same rules generally apply about piercing the corporate veil. In [...]

This is an issue that comes up quite often in my Business Litigation Practice. When two businesses, especially small businesses, first get together they are excited to have the service/ a new client and other than maybe a written a proposal have nothing in writing setting out the terms of the agreement.
If everything does not [...]

While the rent per square foot is an important consideration, money is not the only thing that can be negotiated in a commercial lease.
A colleague of mine, Attorney Chris Moander, recently wrote an article “The lease is a beast I can’t stand in the least” on his blog, and he warns of the danger of [...]

If you missed “Anatomy of a Contract (Part 1 of 3)” click here
In that section I discussed the recitals, or as I refer to it, the “Information” part of a contract. The other two parts are “Action” and “Insurance”. In this post I am going to talk a bit about the “Action” portion of a [...]