Articles

What part of selling a business is most important to sellers? Most would respond that receiving the highest purchase price is most important.  At first blush, this makes sense. However, sellers often focus on the number of zeros in the purchase price and ignore the fact that paying a large amount of income taxes will […]

Jim DeJong, chairman of the Milwaukee law firm of O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing S.C., provided the keynote address at Carroll University’s Commencement Sunday, May 14. Carroll alumnus DeJong ’73 told 2017 graduates that a lot had changed since his days here but one thing is the same, “Carroll is truly a special place.” […]

Springtime can be a good excuse to “clean house.” If you are evaluating your document retention practices this season, consider these points as you determine what to keep and what to toss: If you are involved in litigation or reasonably anticipate litigation, you are required to keep all documents related to the case by implementing […]

One of the central purposes of liability insurance is to protect the insured by providing a defense in the event of a lawsuit. But what defines the limits of an insurer’s duty to defend its insured under Wisconsin law? How is the insurer to decide whether or not to defend an insured in a given […]

When buying or selling a business, it is critical to take the negotiation and preparation of the letter of intent seriously.  All too often, I hear the phrase, “letters of intent are not binding, so we don’t need to spend time negotiating them.”  Other times, a new client will have already signed a letter of […]

In March 2017, Milwaukee WISN 12 reported a heart-wrenching story about a criminal investigation alleging two neighbors defrauded a 92-year-old woman suffering from dementia. According to the allegations, they acquired her home as a gift through a deed and gained control of her nearly $2 million in assets through the execution of a durable power […]

In a reversal of a decision of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in In re Pajian rejected a common bankruptcy court practice of not requiring secured creditors to file proofs of claim in order to receive distributions toward pre-petition secured arrearages as […]

Attorney Seth E. Dizard has recently been appointed to the National Board of Directors for the Ruffed Grouse Society. Established in 1961, the Ruffed Grouse Society (RGS) is North America’s foremost conservation organization dedicated to preserving our sporting traditions by creating healthy forest habitat for ruffed grouse, American woodcock, and other wildlife. RGS works with […]

Arbitration is a common form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in which parties agree to resolve a dispute by submitting it to one or more neutral decision-makers, or arbitrators, for decision.  Arbitration consists of a formal hearing, similar to a trial, where the parties are represented by legal counsel and present evidence and testimony. The […]

Both landlords and tenants have legal and personal obligations to understand and abide by each of the terms in their commercial leases. Too often, aspects of these leases are misunderstood or neglected entirely. The following blog series outlines these aspects one-by-one, emphasizing key points and illustrating these concepts via real-life commercial lease tenancies. To start, let’s […]

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