Business and Corporate

Ball Janik LLP's business/corporate practice encompasses virtually every aspect of legal counsel and representation that a business may require during its life cycle, including assistance with entity selection, formation, and maintenance, capitalization and financing, business and tax advice and planning, and mergers, acquisitions, and reorganizations.

The firm serves as general counsel to businesses in numerous industries, including finance, technology, healthcare, forest products, media, real estate development, food service and hospitality, distribution, retail, and construction.  The day-to-day counseling we provide our clients involves not only business law advice in fundamental areas such as corporate and securities law, contracts, taxation, and employee relations, but also counseling on industry-specific issues that require us to have an in-depth knowledge of both the client’s particular business and the rules and regulations affecting that business.

When representing clients starting new businesses or acquiring new investments, our representation generally begins with an analysis of the appropriate form of entity to serve the client’s needs, whether a domestic or foreign corporation, limited liability company, partnership, limited partnership, or other type of entity, followed by creation of a suitable capital and management structure for the entity.  Thereafter, we provide general entity maintenance, which typically includes preparation and filing of periodic reports, facilitation of director and shareholder meetings, drafting of resolutions, and general upkeep of company books and records.

In the financing area, the firm provides clients with the structure and documentation required to complete financing transactions, and also assists companies in evaluating their current and long-term financing needs, providing practical advice regarding the variety of available financing mechanisms and their relative advantages and disadvantages.  We provide a broad array of legal services to counsel and assist our clients in their pursuit of capital, both in the form of debt and equity financing.  The firm has worked with both start-up and established companies to procure loan and bond financing from institutional lenders, government agencies, and private capital sources.  The firm has assisted clients with equity offerings ranging from exempt private offerings typically valued at less than $1 million to multi-million dollar public offerings.

The firm’s merger and acquisition practice involves both stock and asset based transactions of varied complexity and size, with a predominant focus on transactions involving medium to large privately owned companies.  We also assist our clients with internal restructuring and reorganization of their corporate enterprises in order to facilitate their particular business objectives, which may include minimizing tax liability, eliminating dissenting shareholders, spinning off a business division, or numerous other objectives.