Corporate Housekeeping: Keeping Documents in Order
From time to time, clients with established businesses have asked me to bring order to their legal affairs. I refer to this as ” corporate housekeeping “.
Usually, the request results from an extraordinary, but desirable, event. This might be an acquisition offer, a prospective new investor, or a restructuring for tax purposes. In each instance, the client quickly realizes that it has not been paying close enough attention to legal documentation.
Although the clients are in different industries, their stories are similar. In essence, they limit their legal activities and expenditures to those required to bring business in the door, satisfy customers’ needs, and pay employees. This approach works on a day-to-day basis. Yet when the extraordinary event comes up, the company suddenly needs to devote scarce resources to legal clean-up. (more…)
