Increased regulatory scrutiny, heightened disclosure requirements, and rigorous enforcement practices have put companies under pressure to keep strict corporate government programs. Working with a corporate governance attorney can help your company learn to avoid or reduce the risk of civil or criminal liability within your corporation and minimize potential disruptions.
Contact a Corporate Governance Attorney in NYC
At Woods Lonergan, we understand the importance of developing and implementing corporate governance procedures to avoid litigation and liability. Our litigation attorneys can help your corporation develop and implement non-litigation and litigation tactics while achieving your goals. Contact us today to schedule your initial consultation with one of our experienced attorneys.
Establishing Best Practices for Corporate Governance
Woods Lonergan regularly advises boards, senior executives, and directors about the full range of corporate governance matters that currently confront New York City corporations and their executives. We have extensive experience setting up effective corporate governance and procedures from shareholder activism to corporate structuring and succession planning.
In recent years, the SEC has been ramping up its enforcement. We can help your corporation establish corporate governance policies that will limit your exposure to action being taken against you by the SEC. Our attorneys draw on our experience as seasoned corporate litigators to keep clients informed of new trends and best practices so they can stay ahead of any potentially devastating compliance issues.
Our Corporate Governance Services
When a crisis related to corporate governance does happen, you can call on the corporate governance advisers at Woods Lonergan. We will review your case and carefully guide you through the storm to a safe landing. Our attorneys have seen it all. We have helped clients navigate Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations, negotiate crucial transactions with related party issues, and many other types of novel challenges. Woods Lonergan offers advice and counsel on a wide range of corporate governance matters before management teams and boards of directors, including the following:
- Director and committee independence
- Fiduciary duties
- Director and officer indemnification and insurance
- Board and board committee investigations
- Board and management evaluation and succession
- Executive compensation
- Stakeholder engagement
- Board benchmarking and effectiveness with respect to governance structures and board processes
- Board and committee independence
- Stakeholder engagement
The Benefits of Working With a Corporate Governance Attorney
Business relationships can experience significant changes when the party’s goals and interests don’t align any longer, or when individuals with different goals join a corporation. We help clients develop non-litigation strategies and procedures to resolve disputes. Additionally, we help posture clients in a favorable position for anticipated litigation. In some cases, the only solution is to break up the corporation. Our attorneys have experience pursuing a corporate dissolution that is fair for our clients. We have helped many New York City businesses establish effective corporate governance procedures.
Why Choose Woods Lonergan?
Woods Lonergan works closely with our clients’ management teams and boards to determine the scope of our engagement. We can adjust our legal services model to fit our clients’ particular needs and ongoing potential issues. We understand that no two corporate governance issues are the same. That’s why we design unique strategies for management teams and the Board of Directors that allow them to meet their obligations to stakeholders, including employees and shareholders. As we learn more about the company and the situation, we tailor our legal recommendations to each company. Our advice may change over time as intentions and circumstances evolve.
At our clients’ request, we will attend full board or partial board committee meetings in order to address the specific issues more broadly. Our attorneys often provide training and education to senior managers and board members on a wide range of corporate governance topics, including the following:
- Insider trading
- Governance policies
- Fiduciary obligations
- Fair disclosure
- Stockholder activism
- Cybersecurity
- Proxy advisory firms
- Stakeholder concerns
Securities Litigation and SEC Enforcement
Regulatory compliance is a significant aspect of developing corporate governance strategies. Executives and directors have more regulations to worry about than ever, and the SEC and other federal agencies have been more aggressive in their investigations of corporations. At Woods Lonergan, we support clients by providing day-to-day compliance activity advice for SEC and exchange reporting, including the following:
- Regulation G, FD, and Rule 10B-18 plans and buyback programs
- Section 16 reporting
- Form 8-K compliance
- proxy statements
- Section 16 reporting
- Sarbanes-Oxley
- Dodd-Frank
- NASDAQ/NYSE requirements
- Periodic reports
Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation
Our lawyers have extensive experience navigating the wide range of issues present by high-level executive compensation plans. We can help you draft employment agreements that protect your intellectual property and include confidential agreements.
We can also help you develop a strategy for executives, such as including equity compensation, performance metrics, and severance in charge and control agreements. Even when companies take the time to develop excellent procedures in corporate governance related to employees and executives, we can help you prevent litigation from current and former employees down the road.
Navigating Internal and External Investigations
Even when companies implement thorough corporate governance strategies, internal and external investigations may occur. Should any of these potential disruptions happen, we can help you develop a plan to minimize potential disruptions. Specifically, we will help you respond to anticipated concerns and questions from stakeholders while we work to bring any potential wrongdoing into a successful and efficient close. Our attorneys stay on top of all of the trends in securities litigation and investigations so we can better represent our clients with corporate governance matters.
Discuss Your Case With an NYC Business Attorney
At Woods Lonergan, our attorneys have successfully advised newly-formed, mature, and recently restructured private and public companies across industry sectors. We advise boards of directors, management, and special committees regarding a wide range of corporate governance and related matters. Contact the NYC corporate attorneys at Woods Lonergan to schedule your initial consultation to discuss our corporate governance services.
Woods Lonergan PLLC helps clients with business and corporate law throughout NYC including the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn.