General Counsel and Family Office

General Counsel and Litigation Consulting

Jim serves as an affordable and accessible outside, part-time or interim in-house counsel on an as-needed (transactional) or on-going basis for domestic and offshore companies, businesses and family offices. He can effectively and efficiently address and manage a business’s legal affairs, specific projects or litigation so management can focus on running the business. Jim can act as corporate counsel on a project basis, monthly retainer basis or hourly basis.

Jim has overseen or helped to manage billions of dollars of litigation throughout the United States and Latin America. He can provide an independent, candid analysis of existing or threatened litigation from the perspective of an experienced trial lawyer who carries no baggage with respect to past business or strategy decisions. He can also help to oversee outside litigation counsel and negotiate a settlement of ongoing disputes before or after commencement of litigation, thereby reducing the time, expense and uncertainty involved in the litigation process. He is particularly talented in developing strategy to end litigation early, either through case dispositive motions or settlement.

Jim has worked with lawyers throughout the United States, the Americas and Europe. One value added benefit of working with Jim is that he can use his personal relationships and experience to help clients choose lawyers with particular areas of expertise, negotiate or structure fee arrangements and oversee counsel to provide the highest quality of service in the most cost-effective manner.

Services include:

Advising in connection with retention of outside counsel
Negotiation of outside counsel fee arrangements
Negotiating and structuring complex commercial transactions
Negotiating contracts, leases, licenses and other agreements
Corporation, LLC and partnership law
Work-outs, restructurings and bankruptcies
Structuring and negotiating joint ventures
Counseling boards of directors
Advising on shareholder and partnership issues
Handling select transactions
International law
Opinions and second opinions
Litigation oversight
Acting as “local counsel” on select transactions and litigations

Family Offices and Family-Owned Businesses

Most businesses have a general counsel who advises on routine legal matters, oversees outside counsel on more complex work, and coordinates with management to create opportunity while limiting risk. Wealthy families have many of the same issues as businesses, with the added complexities of family politics, succession and other planning issues. Every family business owner also ultimately faces the same decision—whether to keep the business’s ownership and operation in the family or sell all or part of it to non-family members.

Jim will become a partner in the investment, wealth accumulation and preservation process, working with the family’s other advisors to help clients take advantage of effective tax, investment and personal planning strategies and provide family leadership with a level of comfort knowing that one primary conflict-free legal advisor is protecting them at all times. As an experienced business lawyer, Jim can also evaluate business, real estate and complex investment opportunities from a different perspective than other family advisors.

As general counsel to a family office or family-owned business, Jim will:

Review and advise on current investment and management structures, planning and succession opportunities and operation and management of the family office

Provide comprehensive legal services within the framework of the client’s business and personal life

Review and advise on transactions or initiatives so that they meet legal requirements and do not transgress into areas that could damage the family’s reputation or financial interest

Help to coordinate between various advisors including tax, estate planning, financial, accounting, insurance (risk management) and outside transactional lawyers

Advise on entity location and formation with a focus on tax reduction or avoidance, risk reduction and isolation of liability

Advise on entity selection from the full range of options including partnerships, limited liability companies, S corporations, C corporations, holding companies, trusts, IBCs, sociedades anónimas, foundations and even publicly-traded companies under family control. Advice on entity formation typically focuses on flexible operating systems that allow for future change and growth, capital raising, and potential disposition (whether by sale, gift, initial public offering or otherwise)

Help to facilitate family meetings to discuss inter-generational estate, tax and investment planning

Help in resolving difficult or sensitive family disputes

Advise on legal compliance, including with terms of trusts

Provide a different perspective than other family advisors in advising on establishing and investing in hedge funds, private equity, tenancy-in-common and other private-investment vehicles