Small Business Advisory Services
Crane Law Group provides a complete range of small business advisory services. We help business owners and investors achieve their dreams. We provide practical guidance to business managers as they navigate the challenges of legal compliance and balance the business risks.
Crane Law Group handles sophisticated transactions and business issues. We have experience delivering the services that clients need with a value-driven and client-centric approach.
We tailor our services to the needs of your business, whether you are a start-up enterprise, emerging company, a family-owned enterprise or a middle market company seeking to grow or sitting atop the Fortune 500. We work to understand your business, your drives and your challenges. We want to help accomplish your goals, to get your deal done, to offer you practical and timely legal solutions.
Our breadth of experience and ability to tailor our services also positions us well to coordinate all the legal needs of your business. We regularly serve businesses as their outside general counsel. We help you to anticipate issues and to ensure that all your legal needs receive the necessary attention.
Our Small Business Advisory Services include:
- Corporate Counsel Services
- Corporate Governance and Compliance
- Commercial Transactions and Contracts
- Crisis Management
Corporate Counsel Services
The Crane Law Group is often called on to fulfill or supplement general counsel needs for clients who do not have inside counsel. This is typically a seamless relationship, especially after we have spent time getting to know your business. As outside general counsel we serve as the main source for all your legal needs helping identify issues and ensuring that legal problems are handled by the best resource possible, both inside and outside the firm.
For companies that have internal counsel, our business law team regularly works in close proximity with in-house counsel. We understand that in-house teams have enormous responsibilities and are under ever-increasing demands to control costs. Our goal is to be your external partner for these efforts.
As a boutique firm, we are flexible, service-oriented and empathetic to your legal needs, and we can work with you to tailor fee arrangements that fit your needs.
Corporate Governance and Compliance
The increasing focus on corporate governance and the increasing regulatory and compliance burdens demand sophisticated legal assistance to comply not only with federal and state legal requirements but also to respond to a growing emphasis on “best practices” to lead to a vibrant and effective organization. The Cranel Law Group has an experienced team to render advice and assistance in the rapidly evolving area of corporate governance. We advise public, private and nonprofit companies, boards of directors, committees and senior management on corporate governance best practices to proactively manage risk, seize upon opportunities and maintain productive shareholder relations.
Governance and compliance issues arise in a wide variety of contexts and for a multitude of diverse enterprises. We offer governance advice and assistance that is specific to the needs of our particular clients, including public and private business organizations and nonprofit organizations of all types. Our clients include:
- public companies;
- family-owned and other private entities;
- foundations and public charities;
- insurance companies;
- trade and professional associations;
- religious organizations; and
- institutional investors with an interest in good corporate governance.
We assist our clients in a wide variety of governance-related matters, including the following:
- conduct of board meetings, the preparation of appropriate resolutions and best practices in the preparation of corporate minutes;
- board and committee charters and other governance documents, including majority voting and director resignation policies;
- codes of conduct for officers, directors, employees, and other constituencies;
- risk management and risk oversight systems and responsibilities;
- executive compensation;
- incentive compensation programs;
- options, restricted stock, and other equity compensation
- employment and change of control agreements
- director and officer fiduciary duties;
- whistleblower systems and internal investigations; and
- regulatory compliance.
Commercial Transactions and Contracts
Complex business transactions can make or break a business. From deciding what kind of business entity to form, to financing and operating your business, to conducting mergers or acquisitions, to exiting or liquidating the business, we can assist you at every stage of your business’s lifecycle. Your business requires contracts that people can understand. We bring strategic focus to the legal issues surrounding commercial transactions and contracts. We provide you with strategic counseling as it relates to your negotiations, corporate contracts and the sale of your goods or services.
We counsel clients on structuring, negotiating and implementing collaborative and licensing transactions that often have a significant impact on a company's business. With our extensive experience in these types of transactions and knowledge of both sides of contract issues, our attorneys assist clients on establishing the core business terms and structure of the deal. They also act as problem solvers for complex and difficult contract issues. Clients value the ability of the attorneys in the group to manage the deal negotiation process in an effort to maximize speed-to-signing while minimizing legal expenses.
We understand our clients want to run businesses the right way. Our firm takes pride in providing businesses with assistance every step of the way.
Crisis Management
When faced with a major crisis, businesses, organizations and individuals need lawyers with the judgment, skills, relationships and experience to provide an integrated approach to resolving the crisis. That means lawyers who can develop a strategy that addresses all aspects of the matter—the legal issues; regulatory issues; civil litigation; media and investor scrutiny; and the long-term business or career implications.
Our crisis management practice includes legal experts with significant hands-on experience solving complex problems. This team has the litigation, public policy and communications skills to manage the crisis on multiple fronts. Our focus is on solving the immediate crisis, working with the client to correct the problem, and furthering the client’s long-term objectives in an integrated and efficient way that minimizes future financial, legal and reputational harm.