Business

The Business Practice Group provides clients with a range of services from starting a business and handling daily legal concerns to dealing with complex matters such as mergers, acquisitions, and sales of businesses.  The Business Practice Group encompasses the skills of a number of practice groups, including Community Associations, Construction, Dealer/Distributor and Franchising, Health Care, Housing Authorities, Intellectual Property, International, Nonprofit Organizations, Securities, Tax, and Technology to ensure that all aspects of clients' legal requirements are met.

Our attorneys offer substantial knowledge and experience in structuring business entities; negotiating, drafting, and administering contracts and agreements; developing and administering executive compensation and other benefit plans; structuring relationships within businesses involving directors, officers, fiduciaries, partners, and general managers; assisting with risk management issues, including internal and external policies, and relationships between business parties; financing and secured transactions; tax planning; and handling major structural changes such as acquisitions, mergers, reorganizations, liquidations, separations, asset purchases, and dissolutions.

The Business Practice Group represents individuals and all types and sizes of associations, businesses, institutions, and proprietorships and serves local, regional, national, and international clients.  As a full-service law firm, our resources reach beyond business issues to meet all of the client's requirements.

We take an abiding interest in our clients, taking the time to get to know them and their businesses.  Our attorneys visit clients' places of business, provide newsletters and special bulletins to keep them up to date on business issues, and offer seminars for clients either at their businesses or at one of our five offices.  To complement the services we provide, our attorneys draw on the skills of other practice groups in the Firm.

Attorneys in the Business Practice Group bring to their work a range of complementary experience, including legal advisor to a number of major companies in North Carolina; vice president and general counsel-corporate secretary for a bank holding company in North Carolina; law school professor; author and lecturer on entrepreneurial business and legal issues; chairman of the board of a legal foundation and member of a business commission; member of boards of for-profit, nonprofit, and educational institutions; member of commissions and boards of the state government, the University of North Carolina system, and private business and nonprofit enterprises; North Carolina Bar Association continuing legal education lecturer; and member of boards of local nonprofit organizations.  Several attorneys are authors and lecturers on litigation and estate and tax planning issues, two have an LL.M. in Taxation, and two are certified public accountants.

Our attorneys belong to many organizations relating to their practice areas and are members of numerous professional organizations such as the American College of Real Estate Lawyers; American College of Trust and Estate Counsel; American Intellectual Property Law Association; Council for Entrepreneurial Development; Eastern North Carolina Inn of Court; Medical Group Management Association; North Carolina Association of Certified Public Accountants; North Carolina Bankers Association; North Carolina Chamber; North Carolina State University College of Sciences Foundation; and North Carolina Society of Health Care Attorneys.

We are your established legal network with offices in Asheville, Greenville, New Bern, Raleigh, and Wilmington, NC.

  • American Board of Trial Advocates
  • Legal Elite Business North Carolina 2024
  • Super Lawyers 2021
  • Recognized by Best Lawyers 2023
  • U.S. News Best Lawyers 20234

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