Are you searching for San Diego business attorneys with decades of experience with corporate governance and compliance for healthcare and business entities? Corporate governance is an important discipline which not only protects the corporate veil of your entity, it increases the likelihood of success for any business while increasing the actual value of the entity itself.
Ensuring Corporate Governance and Compliance is the Duty of any Corporate Officer
Corporate governance and compliance for healthcare and business entities in San Diego and across California is an ongoing responsibility for executives and shareholders alike. Corporate governance and compliance is much more than the simple requirements to meet minimum California corporate laws. The corporate attorneys at the Watkins Firm help our clients to protect the corporate veil, and to ensure that all managing shareholders, Directors, officers and managers are up to date on their duties and obligations to the company. We work to ensure that internal systems are developed to ensure that all levels of the company are trained in “best practices” that support the mission of the company, and help to put disciplinary programs in place for those that threaten corporate governance and compliance objectives.
Effective corporate governance and compliance ensures corporate documentation is regularly reviewed and updated to reflect any changes which may have occurred in the past year. Are the minutes from corporate meetings complete and in order? Is there a strategy in place to ensure legal and ethical compliance and conduct from every employee or worker within the organization?
Changes in the business climate, as well as in the growth and development of your corporation may dictate a reorganization of the Board of Directors, or implementation of new policies and procedures. We guide and counsel our clients on the selection of Board members, removal, and compensation issues. We represent our corporate clients in any business related disputes that arise, and work to resolve them quickly and efficiently.
Our governance attorneys work to ensure that your business is kept abreast of all changes in corporate law, as well as employment laws and regulations, and hot button topics such as “wage and hour litigation,” “independent contractor versus employee,” or “unpaid overtime litigation” developments. We handle all contingent liabilities associated with employment disputes, and work to put strategies in place to minimize the opportunity for disputes or litigation to arise.
Corporate Governance and Compliance for a Medical Practice or Healthcare Entity
The medical business and healthcare sector in California is governed by a complex series of federal, state and local laws and regulations which govern not only the ownership and management of a healthcare entity, but the delivery of healthcare and the ethical and regulatory compliance of their work force. Governance and compliance in a healthcare setting requires oversight of not only HIPPA and Stark Law compliance, but billing practices, health and safety compliance and Electronic Records Management (ERM) processes and procedures. These issues are over and above the standard employment related governance applicable to all California employers.
Pro-Tip: “According to the laws for decades, business entities are like separate legal entities from yourself. They’re actually something that you can turn into a very powerful and valuable asset just by creating it as a business. The biggest example is if you are, Joe’s Pizza, then you’re just Joe and you have a pizza place. But if you have an Empire of Joe’s Pizzas all over the country, then your name is branded, then your entity has value, you can borrow against it. You can go to banks, you can go to investors. It becomes a very valuable and important tool. Probably the most important and most neglected tool that a business owner or a business formation person will go into. So when you think of your business, you create an entity and you create value for yourself and you create protection for yourself.
What is the corporate veil? The corporate veil applies to both limited liability companies and corporations and also some other trusts and things like that. But if you have a separate business entity, you have something called a corporate veil. And the thinking is if you keep everything separate and you treat it as a separate entity, you don’t co-mingle funds. You don’t fail to keep records. Then if there’s an obligation of the corporation or if there’s no statute saying it goes right to the primary owner, owners, and shareholders, then you are not personally liable for that. And that means you can take more risks in the business place. You can take out loans, you can get vendor contracts, you can get employment contracts, you can do all kinds of things, joint ventures, mergers, all kinds of things in the name of the business. And when you get home, if things go bad, you don’t have to tell the wife, ‘yeah, I lost the house.’
Corporate governance is maintaining your corporation in a legal and proper fashion, such that you’re in compliance with all the laws of the state of California, so that you may be respected in your corporate form as a separate legal entity. It’s about fairness, it’s about fraud prevention, it’s about doing business in a proper manner, which doesn’t rip off customers, doesn’t damage vendors or lenders. If you maintain your corporation in a proper fashion, keep your minutes, keep your statement of information with the Secretary of State filed, have your meetings and maintain proper records and do business separately, then you should have benefits. You should have tax benefits, you should have investor benefits. You should have benefits of when you want to sell your company. And someone comes to look at it like when we sell a company, we have to come up with something called schedules. Schedules are what we use to identify all the different elements to tell a buyer this is a proper corporation and it’s a safe bet to purchase or to merge with. So all those things. And on top of that, if you comply with corporate governance, you’ll end up doing better in business. Over the last almost 40 years, the ones I see that don’t hold their meetings, that don’t keep records, that don’t refuse to commingle, those companies just don’t do as well. The ones that really stay on it and run their business the right way are usually much more successful.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner
4 Decades of Experience in Corporate Governance and Compliance for Healthcare and Business Entities
Corporate governance and compliance for healthcare and business entities in San Diego and Southern California focuses on the health of the company, the documentation, procedures and guidelines that support it and the fulfillment of corporate annual meeting and note requirements. Learn more about the broad services available to your corporate entity through the Watkins Firm. We invite you to review our podcast Episode 24 – Corporate Governance and Compliance as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.
Meet Dan Watkins:
Daniel W. Watkins is a true people person who sincerely listens. He cares deeply about what others are going through. Dan enjoys digging into the facts and finding creative solutions to problems. He contributes his insights candidly and constructively.
Dan’s interest in people make him deeply invested in every relationship and his exuberant personality makes him a true litigator. Dan fights for his clients with a fierce and calculated commitment.
Dan has practiced in the areas of business, medical practices and healthcare business, high tech/science, real estate and employment defense law since 1987. He is a trusted litigation strategist and true trial attorney with over 50 jury and bench trials to his credit. Dan has successfully represented both large companies and individuals and achieved substantial victories in well-publicized trials throughout California and the U.S.
He is experienced in business and corporate formation and administration, as well as all forms of alternative dispute resolution, including binding arbitration and mediation.
THE ROAD TO BECOMING A BUSINESS LAWYER AND LITIGATOR
Dan has almost 40 years of experience working with, for and against some of the largest insurance companies in the country. He has successfully tried and litigated cases in the areas of Healthcare Compliance, Commercial Litigation, Unfair Business Practices, Fraud, Breach of Contract, Battery, Premises Liability, Product Defect, Medical Malpractice, Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, Construction Defect, as well as Unfair Competition, Defamation, and Trade Secrets.
In December 2003, Dan commenced litigation against Health South Surgery Centers-West, Inc and its’ subsidiaries, exposing the company’s extensive mismanagement and misconduct of its’ surgery centers. Dan has also been asked by some of California’s largest municipalities and corporations to conduct legally required investigations into matters involving alleged employment discrimination and harassment.
