Businesses need lawyers who not only know the law but who also understand their business.

Our business law practice places an emphasis on small and mid-market companies. We build strong relationships with our clients so we understand their goals and challenges and can act as a trusted legal and business advisor. Our business attorneys help clients in Southeastern Pennsylvania and Northern Delaware find reasonable and practical solutions to business and legal problems.

Starting at formation and through the lifecycle of a business, we provide comprehensive and knowledgeable advice on numerous issues facing small to mid-market companies. Our team of attorneys will assist with entity formation, hiring and terminating employees, confidentiality and non-compete issues; drafting shareholder, partnership and operating agreements; and a wide variety of business and commercial contracts. Our business attorneys regularly handle complex business matters including governance issues, strategic planning, executive compensation, negotiating and structuring financing, transition, continuity and succession planning, and liquidity events such as sales or mergers.

To ensure our clients get the best representation possible, where appropriate, our business team that works closely with other MacElree Harvey lawyers, drawing on the skills and experience of lawyers in the areas of commercial litigation, taxation, estate, and succession planning, real estate, employment, finance, insolvency, collections, and restructuring.

Representative Areas of Service:

• Business Formation
• Transactions and Transitions
• Family Businesses
• Professional Practices

Business Formation

MacElree Harvey has helped hundreds of new businesses get their start. We assist clients in the start-up phase with the critical first steps to establish their businesses. We listen to our clients’ objectives, in order to understand the nature of their business, taking into consideration liability concerns, tax ramifications, management and ownership structures, financial issues, and other issues specific to their business.

Throughout every stage of a client’s business, we encourage an eye to the future. Our goal is to build long-term relationships with our clients, tailoring our legal services to their business as it grows and develops.

Transactions and Transitions

MacElree Harvey aims to simplify the legal process and provide affordable, high-quality corporate law services so our clients can stick to what they do best while we handle the compliance, contractual and other legal concerns. We assist owners and boards of directors maintain their operations and foster growth while avoiding legal and regulatory pitfalls. Our attorneys regularly handle complex business matters related to governance, transitions and transactions, strategic planning, raising financing, and offering new services or products. Our attorneys also advise clients on transfers of technology and intellectual property, as well as trademarks, copyrights, and licenses. As our clients’ businesses expand and change, we approach each transaction with financial considerations and long-term strategic plans in mind. Our attorneys listen to the clients’ objectives before aggressively pursuing their interests in any transaction.

Unfortunately, not all business ventures end harmoniously. A “business divorce” involves issues of control, ownership, and distribution of property, as well as potential payments. These business decisions are often accompanied by high-stakes conflict and intense emotions. Our attorneys lend a depth of experience in negotiation and strategic unwinding of a business. When necessary, we work with our litigation group to resolve disagreements as part of the business divorce process.

Family Businesses

MacElree Harvey has worked closely with generations of family business owners and executives. We understand that an owner’s closely held business may be a family’s largest and most important asset. We provide advice related to governance, risk management, employment, real estate, and tax matters, as well as continuity and succession planning. In addition, we help family business owners anticipate risk and conflict through each stage of their business. We evaluate the goals of a business’s current and future owners and advise clients on advanced planning related to management, tax structures, valuation, and transition.

As family businesses pass from generation to generation, transferring ownership, control and assets can be a complex and emotional process. Our attorneys work with families and their advisers to do advance planning for these transitions, minimizing conflict and stress. If disputes arise within the family as part of this process, our attorneys are highly skilled at dealing with those conflicts and negotiating them to resolution. We apply our experience and knowledge from prior successful transitions to our clients’ situations to achieve clients’ goals.

Family business succession planning is a vital component for any closely-held business owner’s estate plan. Our business attorneys work closely with our estates and trusts group, coordinating our efforts to plan business ownership transfers using methods that satisfy our clients’ personal objectives while minimizing risk and tax burdens.

Professional Practices

Owners of professional practices are subject to the same important business decisions as to any other business owner. Doctors, dentists, accountants, lawyers, architects and owners of other licensed professional practices frequently call upon our attorneys for counsel on the legal issues confronting their businesses.

MacElree Harvey’s business attorneys regularly establish professional practices, assisting clients with entity selection and formation, as well as management and governance. Our real estate attorneys negotiate leases for office space and space sharing agreements. As practices grow, owners may choose to add associate members. These changes require developing employment contracts, partnership tracks, non-competition agreements, and compensation plans. Further, when more than one person will be involved in the ownership of the practice, our attorneys assist in designing appropriate business agreements that consider issues ranging from buy-in methods to exit strategies.

Employment policies are also an important consideration for professional practices. We advise clients on employment issues such as employment manuals, workplace policies, hiring and termination procedures, as well as compliance with federal, state and local laws.