Practice Areas

We offer the following legal services:

Business and Corporate Matters
We provide our business clients the legal advice and counseling necessary to further the development and growth of their businesses.  We are able to meet the diverse needs of a wide range of clients, small and large, including corporations, limited liability companies (LLCs), partnerships, families, and individuals.  We offer clients experience in an array of disciplines including real estate, health care, finance, and business planninng and litigation.  This approach enables us to provide cost effective legal services specifically tailored to meet the clients’ needs.  We provide our clients with both long-term business strategies and the ability to handle the legal issues that arise in the continuing operation of their businesses.

We can assist you in a variety of legal matters, including:

• Commercial agreements
  
• Current legal issues affecting businesses
  
• Entity formation, including corporations, limited liability companies, general and limited partnerships, and trusts
  
• Fiduciary duties in various business entities
  
• Joint ventures
  
• Licensure, zoning and taxation issues
• UCC terms and conditions
• Other general business matters

Banking and Financial Institutions
We have extensive experience representing many different types of financial institutions ranging in size from large regional banks to smaller community banks.  Our services include:

• Drafting and reviewing loan and security documents, policies, and procedures for commercial, real estate, and consumer lending. Preparing standard forms for repetitive use and custom crafting documents for complex or unique transactions.
• Assistance in loan workouts or other restructuring of credit arrangements through informal workout arrangements, as well as formal reorganization and bankruptcy proceedings.
• Litigation to bring collection actions, foreclose on mortgages and security interests, and defense of lender liability claims.
• Working with clients on employee relations matters: Preparing employee handbooks and defending clients in wrongful discharge actions.
• Representation of clients in dealings with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of Thrift Supervision.
• Representation of fiduciary parties in decedents' estates, conservatorship and testamentary intervivos trusts. Services include preparing probate court pleadings and tax planning.

In addition, on-location seminars are provided for our clients. Unlike typical general-industry seminars, our training sessions may be held in an informal atmosphere. Questions are encouraged and answers are given in clear, meaningful terms. Representative topics include: account titling; check processing; guaranties; workouts of problem loans; lender liability; rights to bank accounts; foreclosure of mortgages and other remedies.

Employment and Labor Law
Whether you employ a handful of employees in one location or thousands all over the country, we can meet your needs.  Our employer clients include businesses of all sizes, in a wide array of industries, throughout Michigan and beyond. Every one of our clients receives the same commitment to responsive, effective and honest representation and counsel. Communication is important to our relationship, too, and we keep our clients informed of developments in the law that might affect them.  A diverse clientele provides us with the full spectrum of employment-related legal issues and disputes. On a daily basis, our lawyers help employers with:

• Hiring and recruitment
  
• Termination and discipline
  
• Employee handbooks and personnel policies
  
• Disabilities and accommodations
  
• FMLA/ADA  solutions
  
• Employment discrimination
  
• Workplace harassment
  
• Conducting internal investigations
  
• Management and employee training
  
• Affirmative action plans and OFCCP audits
  
• Employee benefits and executive compensation
  
• Employment litigation
  
• Wage and hour
  
• Union avoidance
  
• Union/management relations
  
• Employment and severance agreements
  
• Independent contractor agreements
  
• Non-competition, non-solicitation, and confidentiality agreements, unfair labor practices

We also handle unemployment hearings and matters before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, and other state and federal agencies. 

Probate and Estate Planning
We counsel individuals, families, and businesses concerning all of the legal aspects of their personal and financial planning. Our clients range from young couples starting families to senior citizens enjoying retirement, from new entrepreneurs to established business owners, from minor children to incapacitated adults, from those with standard planning needs to those with unusual and difficult problems.  

Estate Planning
During the estate planning process, we identify the client's goals, analyze the client's personal and financial situation, explain options, and implement a course of action by drafting documents and/or retitling assets. Every plan is different, but in planning for death common goals often emerge. For example, we help clients:

• Protect minor children by designating guardians and managing assets through custodianships or trusts
• Preserve governmental benefits for elderly or disabled persons by using discretionary trusts and maximizing exemptions
• Coordinate life insurance and retirement plans with their total estate plan
• Accomplish charitable goals in the most tax advantageous way without jeopardizing family goals
• Minimize, defer, or eliminate death, gift, and income taxes
• Plan for the orderly transition of a family business
• Plan for succession and operation of family cottages and other types of shared vacation property
• Avoid probate by properly titling assets and/or using living trusts

Planning for disability can also be an important part of the estate planning process. Again, situations vary greatly, but common goals include helping clients to:

• Avoid a formal probate court guardianship or conservatorship proceeding in the event of disability by using durable powers of attorney and/or living trusts
• Address concerns about medical treatment decisions in the event of incapacity with durable designations of patient advocate and/or living wills

Probate Administration
We also represent a wide variety of clients in the probate courts across the state. For example, we:

• Administer decedents' estates of all sizes and types
• Handle will contests, claims against estates, and probate disputes
• Represent the parent or the minor in guardianships and conservatorships
• Represent the fiduciary, the incapacitated adult or the concerned family member in guardianships and conservatorships
• Obtain protective orders from the probate court to address specific problems involving minors or incapacitated adults

Real Estate
We handle a wide range of real estate matter for our clients.  We work with:

• Sellers and buyers of real estate and real estate interests
• Brokers and property managers
• Construction companies, including general contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, construction managers, design build firms, and owners with construction needs
• Landlords and tenants
• Lenders and borrowers in real estate financing transactions
• Architects, engineers and other real estate service providers

Services we provide include:

• Acquisition and sales
• Purchase agreements and land contracts
• Deeds and property restrictions
• Promissory notes and mortgages
• Financing, including interim, construction, and permanent conventional loans
• Leasing and landlord tenant matters
• Remedies, including land contract and mortgage forfeiture and foreclosure and related litigation
• Distressed property transactions
• Foreclosures
• Workouts and restructuring

Litigation
In our diverse litigation practice, we have been successful in achieving excellent results for our clients.  We try cases of all kinds - including highly complex and sophisticated cases - at the trial and appellate levels, in state and federal courts .  We represent major corporations, local and regional businesses, and individuals in virtually all types of litigation including the following:

• Appellate
• Banking
• Bankruptcy
• Business torts
• Collections
• Corporate
• Civil rights
• Commercial
• Computer
• Contracts/warranties     
• Employment

• Environmental
• Health care/hospital
• Media/first amendment
• Probate
• Real estate
• Stockholder disputes
• Trademark/trade names
• Trusts
• Unfair competition

We represent clients in all stages of disputes. We do not believe in litigation for litigation’s sake; we negotiate effectively and can often resolve disputes before filing suit.  Clients often call upon our skill and judgment before litigation to analyze the merits of their cases and to give them risk assessments and cost benefit analyses of filing suit. We make sure our advice is honest and realistic.  However, if a matter cannot be successfully settled and a client must litigate, we will aggressively do battle in court.