Corporate and Commercial Law Practice Area

Key Benefits: 

Our goal is to understand your business and add value at every turn.  We help clients identify and manage all types of risk. We can work on a single matter, as regular counsel, or even serve as your outside general counsel at competitive rates. To be competitive, businesses today must navigate risk and regulations and always be ready to forcefully assert their rights.  We represent clients in commercial arbitration and litigation, ranging from contract and payment disputes to complex "bet your company" litigation.

Key Experience: 

Since 1991, Steven J. O’Neill has provided business law advice and aggressively represented a broad spectrum of entities including: technology companies, contractors, developers, manufacturers, software firms, professional services firms, colleges and universities, government contracts vendors, start ups, and nonprofits. His experience ranges across numerous sectors of the economy including: construction, high tech, medical devices, transportation, electric utility, wind power manufacturing, export controls, distribution, window manufacturing, electronics retail, banking, the leather business, and tribal matters. The firm teams with other professional advisors in tax, accounting, insurance, finance, bankruptcy, and technology to provide full service representation.

Our Commercial Law services include:

Transactional

• Contract review, negotiation and drafting (including: IT, sales, employment, vendor, purchase & sale, foreign, information security, privacy, arbitration clauses)

• Outsourcing - negotiation and drafting of contracts for IT vendors, cloud computing, data protection & privacy, written information security programs

• Formation and restructuring of general and limited partnerships, corporations, limited liability companies, joint ventures,  nonprofits and other business structures

• Regulatory Compliance (OSHA, FTC, HIPAA, GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, Sarbanes-Oxley, IRS, Patriot Act, etc.)

• Legally defensible document retention policies; Electronic signatures (E-Sign and UETA); "paperless office" advice; remote employment issues

• eDiscovery Litigation Preparedness Plans to lower electronic discovery costs & risks

• Written Information Security Programs (WISP); compliance with Massachusetts 201 CMR 17.00 information security regulations; data theft - data loss response planning

• Protection of intellectual property (IP) rights including: copyright; NDAs; non compete agreements; trade secrets; data security lockdown procedures for departing employees

• Asset protection; business succession planning; creditor's rights in bankruptcy

• Labor and employment issues; Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) issues; employment manuals; termination procedures

• Business expansion; development advice including due diligence, land use and permitting

• Franchising and distribution law

• We maintain a library of thousands of easily customized forms

Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

• Seasoned, aggressive, efficient, results-oriented

• Civil litigation in State & Federal Courts (licensed in MA and CT)

• Arbitration, Mediation and other Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR); available to serve as private arbitrator or mediator of disputes

• Disputes among business owners, partners

• Breach of contract; fraud; breach of fiduciary duty; payment disputes; IP disputes

• Collections