CORPORATE COUNSEL
To intimately understand and assist your business in achieving its goals, Shepherd Law serves as your outside General Counsel to handle all legal matters affecting your company.
Small- to medium-sized businesses need a consistent trusted legal advisor that knows their business and can respond quickly to any legal issues. Whether answering a quick question, reviewing a contract, advising on employee issues, negotiating a complex deal, or advising on disputes, the Business Law Attorneys at Shepherd Law understand the complexities of clients’ businesses and give tailored strategic legal guidance and representation. By focusing our practice on business owners and executive management, the Business Law Attorneys at Shepherd Law develop close personal relationships with the company’s decision makers, which gives us the insight to be effective advocates and advisors. Moreover, Mr. Shepherd, through his former service as General Counsel for an international technology firm, has extensive experience with all legal matters that affect the company. He brings such expertise to the small- to medium-size businesses that need top-notch representation, but do have the size and revenue to support an in-house counsel or large multi-national law firm.
BUSINESS FORMATION
Proper corporate formation is the foundation of any successful business. Let Shepherd Law guide your path to the ideal corporate structure.
Every day companies implode because their founders failed to invest in proper structuring. Successful small businesses don’t just happen. They are the result of thoughtful and well-executed planning. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs are so eager to get started that they neglect proper business planning and jump in headfirst with little more than a dream and an idea. Even with the best ideas, this approach can prove disastrous. To avoid this fate, it is always prudent to seek the advice of trusted legal counsel.
To protect your personal assets, your new enterprise must first be created by establishing a clear separation of business and personal affairs. Georgia law provides many options, including C-corps, S-Corps, limited liability corporations, limited liability partnerships, and others, to protect your own assets from your business’ liabilities.
When choosing such a business entity, one size does not fit all. The attorneys at Shepherd Law, LLC will explain the benefits and tax implications for each, ensuring that your corporate structure is not only legally and appropriated established, but that it also matches your company’s goals. Mr. Shepherd expertly guides entrepreneurs through the practical and legal implications of forming a new company, and takes pride in fully understanding the client’s underlying business throughout the process.
Ready to explore incorporating your business? Contact Shepherd Law, LLC where your success is our business.
BUSINESS CONTRACTS
“If it’s not in writing, it was never agreed to.” Let Shepherd Law draft the agreements that protect your company and maximize your contractual benefits.
In the Age of the Internet, many small businesses attempt to cut costs by using general, form contracts downloaded from the Internet to handle individual and specialized contractual relationships. They might then cut and paste various provisions and clauses to produce something that “looks legal.”
While these “do-it-yourself” contracts may certainly seem tempting, the front-end savings can be quickly erased by court costs and attorney’s fees. Unfortunately, poorly drafted and incomplete contracts often result in disputes that end up in court.
To clearly define each party’s rights and obligations, it pays to hire a lawyer to draft your contracts. The Contract Attorneys at Shepherd Law have decades of experience in contract drafting and can create agreements that establish your rights and obligations in clear terms, which greatly minimizes the chances of future disputes and litigation.
BUSINESS LITIGATION
When negotiations break down, Shepherd Law vigorously defends and prosecutes your business’s interests.
The business litigation attorneys of Shepherd Law have decades of experience representing small to medium-sized businesses in all types of commercial litigation. Having represented companies from both the plaintiff’s and defendant’s side, Mr. Katz and Mr. Oaks are skilled are impeccably qualified litigators dedicated to protecting your company’s rights.
At Shepherd law, we have developed a keen understanding of every business’ bottom line: every business decision, including legal choices, must ultimately rest on the overarching financial interests of the company.
“Cash is King” with small businesses and exhausting precious capital on overzealous and unnecessary litigation can render your company insolvent. To that end, we continually evaluate our clients’ cases to assess profitability and timely resolutions. Effective negotiation is critical. In fact, settlement is oftentimes the quickest, smartest, most financially efficient solution.
However, when settlement is not possible, our Business Litigation Attorneys aggressively prosecute and defend our clients’ interests.
Shepherd Law’s business litigation practice includes:
- Breach of Contract
- Breach of Employment Agreements:
- Non-Compete
- Non-Disclosure
- Non-Solicitation
- Ownership and Partnership Disputes
- Employment Disputes
- Officer and Director Breach of Fiduciary Duties
- Theft of Trade Secrets
- Unfair Business Practices
- Professional Corporations (PC)
EMPLOYMENT LAW
Employees are critical to any successful business. Shepherd Law helps maximize your employee relations while keeping you compliant with all employment regulations.
We practice employment law for Employers. Careful attention to employment law can spare many headaches and a great deal of liability exposure for employers of all sizes. For comprehensive advice about any employment law issue for employers, contact an experienced Employment Attorney at Shepherd Law. The best route in navigating workplace liability exposure is to anticipate it and plan to avoid it. A sound understanding of your rights and responsibilities as an employer is a great starting point, but even the best human resources policies will fail to protect you if they are poorly articulated and inconsistently applied.
- Employee contracts and Executive Compensation
- Non-Compete and Confidentiality Agreements
- Employee Handbooks and Employment Policies
- Employee vs. Independent Contractor Classification
- Independent Contractor Agreements
- Exempt vs. Non-exempt Classification
- Wage and Hour Laws
- Hiring and Firing
Employee Disputes & Litigation.
Employee Disputes & Litigation. The Employment Law Attorneys at Shepherd Law aggressively defend companies in all areas of employee disputes and employment-related litigation. Our representation includes serving as legal counsel in contested proceedings, including hearings before administrative agencies, trial litigation, and appeals. We handle the full range of state and federal employment law matters, including:
- Breach of Employment Contract
- Theft of Trade Secrets
- Breach of Non-Compete/Confidentiality Agreement
- Age discrimination claims under ADEA
- Race, sex, color, national origin & religion discrimination claims under Title VII
- Disability related claims under ADA
- Claims made under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
- Claims made under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
Our Employment Defense Attorneys have the requisite local knowledge and experience to provide skilled and effective legal representation to our clients who face employment related litigation in Georgia. We always handle every case with a practical, result-oriented approach which balances strong representation of our clients with realistic cost containment. Our fees are very competitive, and we work with our clients to develop innovative approaches to billing which can result in significant savings to our clients.
For additional information about our ability to protect your company’s interests from the employer’s perspective, contact the office of Shepherd Law, LLC.