Our mission is to build and sustain trusted advisor relationships with privately owned companies, their owners, and their families.
We help clients develop, strengthen, and protect the assets and relationships that drive long-term success. By bringing together attorneys from across ArentFox Schiff, we provide coordinated counsel on the legal, business, tax, ownership, governance, and succession issues that privately owned companies frequently encounter throughout their lifecycles.
We believe the strongest client relationships are built on more than legal advice alone. Our goal is to serve clients in a way that enhances, expands, deepens, and delights in the relationship – becoming trusted advisors who understand not only their businesses, but also the people, values, and objectives behind them.
Whether advising founder-led businesses, family-owned companies, closely held enterprises, or multigenerational organizations, we work closely with clients to help them navigate opportunities and challenges with confidence, clarity, and a long-term perspective.
Private companies face opportunities and challenges that are often fundamentally different from those of public companies.
Ownership transitions, governance decisions, strategic growth initiatives, succession planning, employee retention, financing, and tax considerations frequently overlap. Our focus is helping privately owned companies and their owners navigate these interconnected issues with practical advice that supports both their business objectives and long-term vision.
Because we work with companies across industries and throughout their life cycles, we bring broad experience while remaining focused on the unique circumstances of each client and business.
What Do We Do?
We advise private companies and their owners on a broad range of legal, strategic, and operational matters, including:
- Corporate governance and board matters
- Mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and strategic transactions
- Business succession planning
- Ownership transitions and liquidity events
- Corporate finance and capital raising
- Tax planning and estate planning
- Executive compensation and incentive programs
- Labor and employment matters
- Intellectual property and trade secret protection
- Commercial litigation and dispute resolution
- Real estate matters
- Strategic restructuring and business planning
Whether a client is focused on continued growth, preparing for a transaction, strengthening governance, retaining key employees, or transitioning ownership to the next generation, we bring practical experience and coordinated guidance to help achieve those objectives.
Who Do We Help?
We represent privately owned companies across a wide range of industries, ownership structures, and stages of development.
Our clients include founder-led businesses, family-owned companies, closely held enterprises, privately held middle-market companies, family offices, and private investment platforms. We work with companies that are growing, acquiring, investing, planning for succession, evaluating strategic opportunities, or navigating significant business challenges.
Many of our clients are introduced to us through long-standing relationships with accountants, bankers, wealth advisors, trust companies, family office professionals, and other trusted advisors who serve the private company marketplace. These relationships often begin with a shared commitment to helping business owners achieve their objectives while preserving what they have built.
How Can We Help?
We often describe our Private Companies Group as a firm within a firm.
Clients gain immediate access to the resources of a full-service law firm through a single, coordinated team that understands their business and works collaboratively across practices and offices. Rather than viewing issues through a single legal lens, we bring together the disciplines necessary to address the broader objectives of the business and its owners.
Our approach is intentionally human-scaled. We recognize that privately owned companies often require more than technical legal advice – they require practical judgment, responsiveness, and an understanding of the relationships that influence business decisions. By taking a coordinated and collaborative approach, we help clients anticipate challenges, identify opportunities, and make informed decisions with confidence.
We also work closely with the accountants, bankers, trust officers, wealth advisors, and other professionals who support our clients. These advisors trust us to serve their clients with the same level of care, responsiveness, and professionalism that they provide, reinforcing the relationships that contribute to long-term success.
We serve as general counsel and trusted advisors to private companies operating across diverse industries and markets.
Our attorneys regularly help clients:
- Advising on entity formation, governance, single-level and multilevel restructurings, and day-to-day corporate matters
- Supporting boards, management teams, and investors on corporate approvals, fiduciary duties, and strategic decision-making
- Drafting and negotiating commercial and corporate agreements, including shareholder arrangements, operating agreements, and strategic partnership documentation
- Facilitating entry and exit strategies in asset and equity transactions
- Advising buyers and sellers on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and other strategic transactions
- Managing due diligence to identify key legal and business issues
- Supporting regulatory, antitrust, and cross-border approval processes, including coordination of multijurisdictional filings and closing conditions
- Assisting with post-closing matters, including integration planning, carve-outs, transition services, and acquisition financing
- Design ownership transition and succession plans
- Coordinate business, tax, and estate planning objectives
- Assist in the design and implementation of all types of equity-based plans, phantom equity or profit-sharing arrangements, deferred compensation, and employment agreements
- Advising private companies on compliance with the requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the Internal Revenue Code, and other applicable statutes
- Counseling companies on protecting their valuable business information and customer relationships through non-competition, non-disclosure, and other agreements, as well as enforcing their rights under these agreements when former employees choose to violate them
- Advising founder-led and growth companies on intellectual property protection, trade secret strategies, and the integration of intellectual property considerations into growth, investment, and transaction planning
- Assisting private company clients in structuring, negotiating, and documenting credit agreements and related arrangements to finance their ongoing business operations, without jeopardizing the continuation of control of the business
- Representing closely-held businesses, as well as majority and minority owners, in ownership and governance disputes – from requests to inspect books and records to trial
- Advising family-owned and multigenerational businesses on governance modernization, shareholder arrangements, spousal and trust planning considerations, transfer restrictions, succession mechanics, voting frameworks, and family ownership protections designed to preserve continuity across generations
- Advising boards, owners, shareholders, and investors on governance rights, fiduciary obligations, approval thresholds, minority protections, drag-along rights, deadlock resolution mechanisms, and liquidity event planning
- Assisting private companies with organizational restructurings, including holding company structures and affiliated operating entities, to address operational, liability, governance, tax, financing, and estate-planning objectives
- Advising founders, emerging growth companies, and investors on venture capital and growth-equity financings, including entity formation, capitalization planning, governance structuring, investor rights, executive incentives, and strategic financing transactions
- Advising privately owned professional services firms and founder-led businesses regarding succession planning strategies, ownership broadening programs, leadership continuity, financing alternatives for management buy-ins, and governance structures that permit gradual transition of ownership while maintaining operational stability.
- Advising executives and co-investors participating in private equity-sponsored acquisitions regarding equity investments, executive compensation arrangements, rollover equity, stock options, tax planning, and governance rights.
Because we advise private companies throughout their life cycles, we help clients address both immediate challenges and long-term opportunities with the benefit of experience gained across industries and generations of ownership.
