Business

Fox, O’Neill & Shannon, S.C. has been a business law leader for almost 60 years. The firm is unique, maintaining within the firm business attorneys who are also certified public accountants with public accounting firm experience.

FOS provides legal services for business clients of all sizes at all stages of operations. In addition to its operational expertise, the firm has extensive transactional experience, including in mergers, acquisitions and succession planning. FOS views every new business client as an opportunity for a decades-long relationship.  The firm provides quality legal services at a reasonable cost.

Whether counseling start-up companies or established national businesses, our approach is the same – we work closely and personally with business owners, operators and advisors to strategize the most effective way to maintain and improve their operational success and legal compliance. With FOS’s straightforward, real-world legal advice, business owners can protect and grow their success in the competitive global economy.

Drafting and negotiating of contracts, including:

• Employment and separation agreements
• Terms and conditions
• Real and personal property leases
• Turn-key agreements
• Licensing agreements
• Vendor and supplier agreements
• Distribution agreements
• Dealer agreements
• Asset purchase and stock sale agreements
• Offers to purchase and letters of intent
• Mortgage, loan, guaranty and other financing agreements and documentation
• Industrial revenue bond documentation

Securing and lien filings, including through:

• UCC filings
• Register of Deeds recordings
• Construction liens
• Warehouse liens

Protecting businesses against debtors in receivership or bankruptcy, including through:

• Filing claims
• Prosecuting motions for relief from the automatic stay
• Enforcing security agreements
• Prosecuting adversary proceedings

Defending preference and fraudulent conveyance claims

Guiding clients through the creation of new businesses, including:

• Determining appropriate form and initial structuring of entities including corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships and service corporations
• Drafting organizational documents including articles of incorporation, articles of organization and operating agreements
• Advising clients regarding business planning tax issues
• Drafting shareholder agreements, stock plans, stock redemption agreements
• Advising clients regarding legal obligations of directors, officers, managers and principals
• Advising clients regarding employment issues including employment, benefit and compensation agreements

Handling state, national and international trademark and service mark matters, including:

• Registering and maintaining mark
• Monitoring for potentially conflicting marks
• Protecting of mark
• Waging legal challenges to offending marks
• Defending mark against legal challenges

Serving clients throughout the world, including:

• Assisting companies in understanding cultural differences which may affect international business relations
• Structuring foreign-owned businesses’ U.S. business entities
• Drafting, negotiating and enforcing contracts between international parties
• Assisting companies in understanding cultural differences which may affect international business relations
• Structuring foreign-owned U.S. business entities
• Drafting, negotiating and enforcing contracts between international parties

Generating critical funding through private placements, including:

• Determining and advising client as to appropriateness of private placement
• Advising clients regarding applicable securities laws
• Preparing private placement memoranda and documentation
• Supervising the performance and documentation of due diligence
• Drafting and reviewing purchaser suitability questionnaires
• Advising client regarding  proposed investors
• Making regulatory filings
• Assisting brokers in structuring distribution agreements and negotiating fair compensation arrangements

Fox, O’Neill & Shannon, S.C. has been at the forefront of protecting Wisconsin businesses under Wisconsin’s Fair Dealership Law for over 45 years.

• The firm successfully represented a dealer in one of the first reported cases under the law
• The firm has decades of experience drafting and negotiating dealership agreements, and successfully litigating disputes under the Dealership Law