Business Transactions

Corporate Transactions

Shook’s corporate attorneys come prepared to handle all your transactional needs, including mergers, acquisitions and divestitures; strategic alliances and joint ventures; distributorships; public offerings; tender offers; venture capital financing; equity and debt restructuring; project finance; workouts; corporate governance; and general corporate law. Our attorneys counsel financial institutions and corporate borrowers on loan transactions and regulatory issues, and are nationally recognized experts in various areas of commercial law. 

Real Estate

For decades, Shook has represented clients in all aspects of real estate transactions, including: acquisition, development, and disposition; commercial leasing; commercial lending and enforcement actions; environmental; health-care real estate; hospitality, mixed-use and resort development; land use and zoning; public sector transactions; and real estate litigation and dispute resolution.

Whether managing single sites or hundreds of properties in complex, multi-state transactions, our attorneys handle leases, surveys, title policies, liens, and other issues arising from the purchase, development, financing, operation, or sale of real estate. Shook’s real estate projects include research and development sites, office buildings, retail centers, large-scale residential and mixed-use developments, apartment and condominium complexes, hotels, hospitals and other health-care facilities, industrial facilities, warehouses, restaurants, telecommunications facilities, wind farms, and ethanol facilities.

Retail Property Strategies

While financial market disruptions and the economic downturn have and will continue to create a multitude of legal and business challenges for the retail industry, the full extent of the fallout is not yet known. What is clear, however, is that many retailers face the need to re-evaluate fundamental growth strategies that may result in the need to close and divest themselves of or otherwise restructure some or all of their stores.

Retailers need to stay ahead of the curve in assessing their specific situation as these challenges come into sharper focus. The changes that flow from this disruption do not have to be negative. Those companies that anticipate and manage the risk through perceptive opportunity assessment, strategy and execution will emerge from this cycle in the strongest, most competitive position possible. Recognizing the need for a legal partner to bring creative and efficient analysis, strategies and implementation, Shook has formed a Retail Property Strategies Practice to bring focus to a full range of options for businesses in this fluid environment.

Tax

Shook has a successful history of representing corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, trusts, individuals, and estates in a wide range of taxation matters. Shook’s Tax Law Practice provides cost-efficient services focused on business and individual tax planning, tax controversies, tax litigation, and non-profit and tax exempt organizations. 

Estate Planning

An outdated estate plan can be just as disastrous as no plan at all. Shook asks clients to consider the many life changes that could render an estate plan ineffective, including  changes in financial or marital situation, the addition of new family members, the loss or disability of loved ones, declining health, changes in charitable inclinations, a change in state of residence, and annual changes in tax laws. Shook estate planning attorneys can provide a plan to coordinate wills, trusts, jointly owned property interests, life insurance policies, pension plans, and retirement accounts. A well-crafted estate plan can also help minimize the risk of taxing authorities becoming the unnamed beneficiaries of an estate.