McLane Middleton is a leader in representing corporations and their owners in all aspects of corporate law matters and transactions. McLane Middleton’s corporate lawyers have a breadth and depth of specialized experience in those areas and industries that allow us to provide legal counsel to our clients using a thorough and practical approach that focuses on each client’s short-term objectives and long-term strategic goals.
McLane Middleton brings over nine decades of corporate law experience to those matters on which we work for our clients. We represent clients across a broad spectrum of size, complexity, and industry, with their most important corporate law issues, including business formation, corporate governance, complex agreements, capital raising, securities offerings, executive compensation, mergers, acquisitions, and other strategic transactions. Our experience, combined with our industry knowledge, positions us to identify innovative solutions to complex issues.
According to the 2015 edition of Chambers USA, McLane Middleton is known as the “market leader in New Hampshire corporate matters, offering high-quality advice on the full range of business-related issues, including M&A, financing, and securities.”
We take pride in our long-term relationships with our clients, and we often serve as ongoing primary legal counsel for our clients. In this role, we serve as a trusted advisor to our clients and assist them with a wide range of legal matters that they confront in running their business.
To learn more, please contact Daniel J. Norris, Chairman of the Corporate Department, at [email protected].
Mergers and Acquisitions
McLane Middleton advises its clients on transactions in all industries, with values ranging from millions of dollars through billion-dollar transactions. McLane Middleton has experience working with buyers and sellers, private equity firms, and management teams to assist them with getting a deal closed while maximizing the value of the transaction.
The group’s attorneys have extensive experience dealing with complex transactions that often involve cross-border and multijurisdictional issues.
McLane Middleton’s team of corporate law attorneys is well-qualified to lead businesses through all aspects of a transaction and has extensive experience dealing with transaction structures and issues relating to:
- Tax planning
- Capital and debt financing
- Due diligence
- Complex negotiations
- Risk allocation and mitigation
- Management team considerations
Securities Offerings & Regulation
The McLane Middleton Securities Law Practice Group counsels businesses and individuals throughout New England on a multitude of securities-related matters. The firm's attorneys possess in-depth knowledge and years of experience in:
- Private Offerings
- Issuer’s counsel in offerings exempt from SEC and state registration
- Representing start-up companies raising equity capital
- Working relationships with New England Blue Sky administrators
- Public Offerings
- Issuer’s counsel in public offerings registered with the SEC, including initial public offerings, secondary offerings, shelf registrations, mergers and acquisitions, and employee equity plans
- Securities Exchange Act Services
- Preparation and review of proxy statements and Exchange Act reports for clients whose securities are registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and stock exchange and self-regulatory organization rules
- Counseling officers, directors, and controlling shareholders with respect to their securities transaction reporting responsibilities and trading restrictions
- Registered Investment Advisor, Broker/Dealer, and Associated Person Representation
- Federal, state, and regulatory organization registration of firms and their agents
- Securities Litigation
- Representation of national securities brokerage firms, registered representatives, registered investment advisors, and individuals in state and federal courts and administrative proceedings and in arbitration before the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the American Arbitration Association
International Business
McLane Middleton’s International Business Group understands the dynamics of today’s global marketplace and counsels all types of businesses involved in inbound and outbound international commerce.
From closely held companies and partnerships to regional, national, and multinational corporations, we assist business clients efficiently with:
- Immigration and visas
- Selection and formation of legal entity
- Protection of intellectual property: foreign patents, trademarks, and copyrights
- Pre-contract documents
- Financing and credit arrangements
- Product sale and distribution agreements
With experience in providing negotiation assistance abroad, McLane Middleton facilitates its business clients’ activities with the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services, and provides advice on tax and employment issues for relocating personnel.
Privacy & Information Security
McLane Middleton's Privacy and Information Security Group can help your business manage and address the risks inherent in our digital world. Technology is ingrained in every aspect of our business and personal lives. Society can hardly move fast enough to adopt today's newest technologies before tomorrow's arrive in our workplaces, homes, cars and the palms of our hands. Along with such tremendous new developments come significant new risks.
Information Security – A Compliance and Litigation Minefield
Businesses must take adequate precautions to protect the personal and health information of their customers and employees and the public at large. While companies involved in health care, banking, financial services, education, and credit services have been subject to rigorous compliance standards for some time, every business is now facing the need to comply with the multiplicity of laws and regulations enacted by the various states, including nationwide application of Massachusetts, Texas and California law.
McLane Middleton's Privacy and Information Security Group has the depth of subject matter knowledge and breadth of industry experience necessary to help your business become and stay data security compliant. Even careful companies, however, can experience a data security incident or breach. Our prompt, level-headed and meticulous responses to such breaches have helped many clients control and avoid litigation and the other potentially disastrous consequences of a breach.
Privacy – A Brave New Digital World
McLane Middleton's Privacy and Information Security Group also guides clients through the complex legal and business issues inherent in data privacy. We approach these issues proactively, starting with comprehensive information use policies and procedures tailored to each particular business and designed to avoid internal problems and costly litigation. We also train business executives, leaders, managers and employees about appropriate data use and privacy.
Our legal professionals fuse legal and technical knowledge to help clients address the myriad of data privacy issues that arise on a daily basis, particularly with respect to social media, email, webmail, mobile devices, surveillance, background checks, laptops, personal computers, servers, databases, and the many other technologies used by companies and individuals today. We also have a unique depth and breadth of business litigation experience to handle the wide variety of data privacy lawsuits that arise today.
Corporate Finance
Backed by decades of experience, the Commercial Finance attorneys at McLane Middleton focus on "making the deal work for our client." We make the effort to understand our clients' objectives, anticipate and come to terms with risks and obstacles, and complete transactions consistent with our clients' needs.
McLane Middleton's Commercial Finance Group assists borrowers, investors, and lenders in cooperation with the firm's other practice groups. Our work regularly allows us to assist companies, partnerships and individuals in sophisticated debt and equity financing transactions, including commercial borrowing, non-bank institutional debt transactions, public and private securities transactions, ESOP transactions, and negotiated venture capital financings. McLane Middleton's expertise encompasses a variety of short- and long-term corporate financial arrangements such as lines of credit; revolving loans; warehouse loans; bond financing; mortgage-backed financing; asset-based loans; secured corporate debt issuance; corporate debentures; and venture capital transactions.
We also represent lenders in protecting their interests in loan transactions, as well as in negotiating and restructuring problem loans. Our attorneys are experienced in foreclosing and repossessing borrower assets to protect creditors' rights.
Bankruptcy, Restructuring & Creditors' Rights
Although all would like to avoid it, nearly every business will become involved in a bankruptcy or insolvency proceeding in some capacity. It may be as a secured or unsecured creditor, landlord, customer or vendor, or as a defendant to a trustee's lawsuit or, perhaps, as the buyer of the bankrupt business. Regardless of your role in a particular matter, the experienced attorneys at McLane Middleton can help you through the process, protect your interests, and make the process a little less arduous for you to endure. McLane Middleton's bankruptcy attorneys represent secured and unsecured creditors, customers and vendors, creditor committees, equity security holders, purchasers of assets and trustees. We have clients ranging from an individual customer or trade vendor to nationally recognized banks and finance companies. We have significant experience representing creditors of all types through every type of bankruptcy proceeding.
Bankruptcy Chapter 11
Chapter 11 is the commercial reorganization process in which the debtor prepares and files a plan to reorganize, sell or liquidate its business. McLane Middleton's team of attorneys has over 25 years of experience representing parties in every aspect of the Chapter 11 process. McLane Middleton's clients include individual creditors, customers, vendors, equity security holders, purchasers of assets, lenders, creditor committees, and the debtor itself. Whatever the issue – be it defending a claim, assessing the Chapter 11 plan, protecting your secured status or enforcing a lease – our team of professionals at McLane Middleton have the expertise and experience to represent you.
Bankruptcy Chapter 7 and 13 (Creditor Representation)
Chapter 7 is a liquidation process for individuals or certain small businesses. Chapter 13 is the individual reorganization process. McLane Middleton represents creditors through the entire chapter 7 or 13 bankruptcy process. McLane Middleton can prepare and file a proof of claim, attend the 341 meeting of creditors, and assess whether there are issues of fraud or other reasons to pursue an order of non-dischargeability of your debt and object to a Chapter 13 plan which treats your claim improperly. In both Chapter 7 and 13 proceedings, McLane Middleton has extensive experience defending parties – ranging from individuals to trade creditors to larger institutions – against trustees' preference and fraudulent transfer action lawsuits. McLane Middleton is well-equipped to assist you in any of your Chapter 7 and 13 creditor needs.
Internal Partnering Brings McLane Middleton's Breadth of Experience/Expertise to Each Matter
When a bankruptcy or commercial insolvency matter involves issues such as intellectual property, employment, corporate, or criminal law we are able to work through each unique issue together with and drawing on the experience of each of McLane Middleton's particular practice groups. When a bankruptcy matter involves complicated litigation our Business Litigation Group will participate for the best possible outcome. This team approach to client service fosters creative thinking and cost-effective, quality client service.
Government Investigations
For the past 20 years, businesses and individuals have sought the advice of McLane Middleton to handle their complex and potentially damaging white collar and government investigations. Our attorneys have a successful track record in resolving many of these matters, without any formal charges. At McLane Middleton, we treat every regulatory or criminal matter with sensitivity and professionalism. When investigations result in enforcement actions, indictments or civil lawsuits, we have successfully defended our clients in state and federal courts, as well as before administrative agencies.
McLane Middleton attorneys regularly conduct internal corporate investigations and defend clients in False Claims Acts and whistleblower lawsuits, as well as in cases where the government alleges tax evasion, government contract fraud, bribery, computer fraud, bank fraud and many other areas.
Most government investigations, regardless of whether they result in formal charges, have many collateral consequences, which, if unforeseen, may have devastating long-term effects on business. McLane Middleton's White Collar Crime and Government Investigations Practice Group utilizes the expertise of the firm's other practice areas for detailed analysis in complex areas of the law to avoid the pitfalls that may occur due to government investigations.
The attorneys in the White Collar Crime and Government Investigations Practice Group have a wealth of experience in government and private practice.
Business Tax & Tax Exempt Entities
At McLane Middleton, we understand that taxes directly affect the bottom line of every business. Our Tax Law Department has a wide range of experience in assisting clients with business and tax planning matters, including individuals, small closely-held businesses, and large multinational conglomerates. Our attorneys have represented shareholders, corporations, buyers, sellers and individuals in connection with a variety of tax-related transactions and issues. It is this extensive experience that allows us to provide our clients with creative and individually tailored solutions designed to achieve their business and financial objectives.
Immigration
The United States has always attracted the best and brightest from around the world, and there are significant numbers of highly educated and motivated people worldwide seeking to work, either temporarily or permanently, for a U.S. company. In a strong economy characterized by low unemployment and rapidly changing technology, U.S. businesses wishing to ride the wave of economic growth and expansion of new technologies are finding that employment of foreign nationals is critical to their prospects for success. Additionally, businesses based abroad seeking to establish a presence in the U.S. marketplace must be able to transfer key employees to this country swiftly and efficiently.
McLane Middleton's Immigration Practice Group specializes in immigration and nationality law, with emphasis on business and employment immigration. Because of the federal nature of immigration practice, we have the flexibility to represent clients in New Hampshire, throughout New England and the United States, and around the world. Our firm assists corporate and individual clients, whether inside or outside the United States.
To read more about our immigration practice, click here.
