Resolving a dispute within the members of your LLC quickly and efficiently is crucial for any San Diego business.  Disputes between members of an LLC can not only be counter-productive to the management of the company, they can threaten the viability of the underlying business itself.  What are the key issues in an LLC member dispute?  How can the Watkins Firm provide sound counsel and valuable legal service if you are in a dispute with a business partner?

The key issues in an LLC member dispute are time, money and the relationship between the parties in the dispute.  The attorneys at the Watkins Firm understand all of the nuances associated with an internal LLC dispute.  We have developed a unique approach to resolving a dispute within the members of your LLC  that is designed to resolve disputes and disagreements quickly and cost-effectively.   In some cases there are genuine, principled issues surrounding money and the quantity or quality of work provided by each party.  In other cases, the issues are actually a sign of growing pains and reveal the need to bring in additional investment or knowledge to help the business to continue to grow and thrive.  There are times when it may be necessary to negotiate an exit strategy for one member for the good of the LLC itself.

Our attorneys have served LLCs and small business owners for decades.  We have represented corporations in major litigation, and bring this expertise to add power to your side of the equation.  We work to establish productive negotiations with opposing parties and their counsel.  Most of these disputes are resolved through effective, leveraged negotiation.  We work to help the parties to resolve the issues at hand while rebuilding important bridges in business and personal relationships.  In some cases mediation or arbitration may help to resolve more complicated issues.

Pro-Tip: “Limited liability Companies (LLCs) came along in the late 80’s, early 90s and California was one of the first states to have it. It’s like a corporation or it’s like a partnership and you get to elect which way you want to be. It’s very versatile and it comes with what we call an operating agreement. You don’t have to have it, but it’s a great document that acts sort of like a shareholder agreement.

So five buddies want to get together and buy a bar. They can have an agreement that they all sign that has a lot of, what if this happens, what if that happens and who gets what money? Because sometimes you have sweat equity, you got one guy working the bar all the time and the other guy’s just drinking. So you can have it written in into your operating agreement that the guy who works harder, even though we didn’t invest, we all invested the same, can get more money.

Mostly it’s going to be a closely held company. When there’s a dispute, we want to get the facts down and we want the evidence they have in chronological order, because that’s the best way to communicate to the other party to a third party, to anyone is in chronological order. That’s how we think. Then I want to help our clients analyze the damages. Whether you are feeling like they owe you something, they’re not complying with the agreement or vice versa. So I also want to want something more from you – we’re going to analyze what it’s going to cost to fight. And also look at the future business, whether we can salvage this relationship, all of those important things should come into play. We give good advice, and sometimes we’ll even advise our clients how we would think about it and then let them go talk to their partner or whoever they’re dealing with on their own armed with our knowledge and our negotiation technique.

And if they have any kind of good business skills, we can coach them give them the law in layman’s terms so that when they negotiate, they’re negotiating with the knowledge of what we would say and even more facts. So they can actually be better than us, they have the relationship and they can often try to work it out themselves.  When needed, we can step in to help get things resolved, and document whatever is necessary to get things back on track.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

Your Watkins Firm attorneys will be with you at every step of the process while resolving a dispute within the members of your LLC quickly and cost-effectively.  We invite you to review our podcast Episode 11 – Business Dispute Resolution as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.