Our commercial corporate practice represents commercial businesses, real estate developers, family-owned businesses, and individual investors. Our attorneys bring deep understanding and knowledge of the rules and regulations and general corporate law necessary to structure a successful organization, entity or joint venture.
In addition, we are able to tap the knowledge and experience of other attorneys at our firm who specialize in tax, corporate formation, litigation, and real estate law.
Additional business services include:
- Business Organization
- Corporate Governance
- Debt and Securities Financing
- Business Succession
- Succession Planning
- Taxation
- Employment Law
Renewable Energy
Our Focus
- Preserving landowner rights, such as existing and future property uses, mineral development opportunities, and other renewable energy development opportunities (e.g. small and/or community wind and solar)
- Critical developer evaluation aimed at verifying the developer’s ability and resources and identifying the developer’s competing projects
- Critical project evaluation aimed at verifying the status and development potential of the proposed project and how the property fits within the overall project plan
- Project advancement and avoiding land-banking, transmission plays, and use of the property for blocking strategies
- Identifying and building into agreements appropriate economic features, such as signing fees, option fees, damage/installation fees, royalties, minimum royalties, and other fees (e.g. road, transmission, and substation fees)
Our Experience
- Represent landowners, grazing associations, small developers and landowner groups in wind/solar energy transactions
- Involved with wind/solar energy projects in six states, including CO/ NE/KS/NM/WY/TX
- Experience negotiating wind/solar energy agreements (easements/leases, options, cooperation/meteorological agreements) with small, medium and large developers
- Represent landowners and small developers in wind/solar project sales
- Invited to present on landowner wind/solar energy easement/lease issues at local, state, and national conferences.
Our Efficiency
We strive for efficiency in evaluating and negotiating agreements with developers. To this end, we maintain a database of option and easement/lease forms and transaction summaries. From this database, we have developed a set of tools designed to efficiently evaluate the developer and evaluate and structure agreements. This database includes:
- 50-item checklist for evaluating
- developers and proposed projects
- Economics tables, tracking the economic features and amounts of various projects
- A table of option and easement/lease concepts, used to evaluate each agreement
- A table of additional and alternative lease terms and concepts, designed to preserve landowner rights and maximize project advancement
We limit our renewable energy development work to work with local interests and a handful of small (mostly community-scale project) developers. This limitation allows us to represent landowners opposite nearly all developers (particularly large developers). Also, our work with these developers gives us a stronger understanding of the developer’s perspective and requirements, allowing us to more efficiently negotiate transactions for landowner interests.
Please feel free to contact us if approached by a developer, if interested in discussing development opportunities for your property, or if interested in forming a landowner association. We will gladly discuss your opportunities and how we can assist you.
Corporate Organization
Our professionals have substantial experience advising business owners in the areas of entity selection, organization and operating entities such as corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, and joint ventures. Initial considerations to be made often depend upon tax, liability protection, business objectives and business operational factors.
Corporate Governance
We act as outside general counsel advisers to business owners on issues of corporate law, compliance and governance issues, tax issues, business transactions, employment issues, contractual disputes and other legal issues faced by business entities and their owners.
Securities & Debt Transactions
Our lawyers have helped many clients structure fundraising transactions such as securities and debt financing transactions with both individual and institutional investors and lenders. We have structured and closed numerous private equity offerings for our clients in a variety of business lines, including but not limited to, drafting the offering memorandum, subscription documents, and securities law regulatory filings. We also advise clients in commercial lending transactions, including security agreements and UCC filings.
Business Succession
We advise our clients on issues of business succession planning and exit strategies, whether in the form of a merger or acquisition or through family estate planning methods. Our lawyers rely upon their integrated expertise in tax planning, corporate governance, and estate planning to formulate the best business solution for our clients.
Taxation
Our attorneys can provide clients with tax planning recommendations with respect to a full range of taxation issues in the estate planning, corporate, partnership, nonprofit, individual, estate and trust taxation areas.
Some examples of tax planning opportunities:
- Estate planning, including estate tax returns
- Gift tax planning, including gift tax returns
- Wills and trusts
- Partnership tax, including allocations and distributions
- Corporate taxation, including S Corporation conversions
- Nonprofit corporations, associations and other exempt organizations
- Mergers and acquisitions planning
- Business successions to family members and/or employees
- International tax matters
- Negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service
Employment Law
We represent both employers and employees in matters of labor and employment law. Practice areas include:
Employment Law
- Employment Agreements
- Employment Policies and Manuals
- Hiring and Termination Issues
- Non-Competition Issues
We also advise clients regarding the variety equity incentive and profit sharing plans available to offer employees and consultants which draw on our expertise in tax, business, and securities law matters.
527 & 501(C) Organizations
Hackstaff, Snow, Atkinson & Griess, LLC has helped many clients form and run political 527 and 501(c) organizations interested in affecting public policy. Due to our long history with such groups, we effectively and efficiently guide clients through the steps to setup the organization that is right for them. We explain the various pros and cons of each type of organization at the outset so that our clients can begin working on their goals sooner than later.
Additionally, we help clients continue to maintain their organization, through corporate governance, nonprofit tax applications, and regularly scheduled board meetings.
