Business attorneys provide a wide range of services to a business one of the more noticeable of which is performing a review of the business contracts that a company has. There are a number of reasons why a company may hire an business attorney to do so and this article will highlight some of the more common reasons.
Drafting Business Contracts
Business lawyers concentrate on business law that includes the writing and review of contracts, employment agreements, and other business processes that involve companies. Having a business lawyer review contracts with customers, vendors, third parties, and employees can help to protect a company from unwanted liabilities and help them to structure transactions in a way that benefits a company overall. Often the focus that lawyers have in these agreements is eliminating risks and responsibilities and reducing the overall exposure to litigation for the business.
Mergers and Acquisitions and Shareholder Disputes
Mergers and acquisitions are extensive financial transactions that require extensive reviews of the legal details of the transaction. There are notable areas of focus that are commonly disputed and need the fine touches of a business lawyer; the purchase price, of course, any holdback charges and working capital adjustments, a process for handling shareholder disputes, and earnout payments. Not properly addressing these items in an initial merger or acquisition agreement can lead to significant problems down the road and may even involve hiring a shareholder dispute attorney to review the contracts and help to resolve these pending issues. Having a business attorney review a contract early on can help to predefine an arbitration process that can clearly define responsibilities and processes to handle these issues as they arise in a more orderly format.
Handling Litigation
When litigation does occur, or when a company wants to pursue litigation against a company, they often hire business lawyers to review the business contracts that the company has agreed to and see what legal actions are possible given the signed contracts. A business lawyer will dredge through the fine print, develop arguments based on the underlying contracts and help to develop an argument on behalf of the business. A business lawyer can also provide expert testimony in court on behalf of a business based on their knowledge of the law.
Business lawyers are therefore an essential part of the contract process in terms of helping a company to draft agreements, review them, and pursue or protect a company from litigation arising from these business contracts.