General Counsel Services

 

IMW provide high quality, tailored and effective General Counsel services to small to medium sized businesses.  Our Firm is often retained by small and medium-sized entities and companies to act as their outside general counsel, as many of these companies either do not have a need for a full-time in-house attorney, or do not have the resources to retain one. Under these circumstances, we offer our clients the opportunity to retain our IMW as their outside general counsel, and thereby provide a range of expertise to assist in those clients in their day-to-day business operations.

 

IMW partners and senior attorneys are heavily involved with every client, delivering a strategic, efficient and practical approach. We focus on building long-term relationships that provide stability and reliability, and in doing so deliver better service and value. Below are examples of General Counsel services offered to clients:

 

• Assist clients’ human resources departments in all aspects of employment law, including the drafting and negotiation of employment agreements, independent contractor agreements, severance agreements and other HR and legal/compliance-related issues, such as drafting employee handbooks and instituting non-discrimination policies.

 

• Assist clients with corporate governance-related tasks, including forming new entities, drafting operating agreements/bylaws, and complying with the formalities of operating a legal entity.

 

• Assist and attend Board of Directors meetings

 

• Assist clients with contract preparation and negotiation

 

• Assist clients with business planning and strategy

 

• Assist clients with intellectual property, insurance, risk management and trade secret issues

 

• Assist clients with licensing, regulatory and legal compliance matters

 

• Litigation services or monitoring of outside litigation counsel

 

 

Local Counsel Services

 

Ivie McNeill Wyatt Purcell & Diggs acts as local counsel to other California lawyers or out of state lawyers that find themselves litigating in California Courts. In addition to practicing before California state courts, we are admitted to the California federal courts. Our experience and familiarity with court practices and procedures can be an indispensable asset to firms and their clients less familiar with the nuances of the California practice. Our role varies with the needs of non-California counsel. Sometimes our Firm takes a very limited role – such as assisting the non-California counsel with getting admitted pro hac vice, and educating them on California practice and procedure while in other cases, IMW actively assists in the litigation. In all cases, we are prepared to answer any questions that non-California lawyers could have about procedures in either federal or state court.

 

We also understand and respect the primary attorney – client relationship and carefully tailor our role as local counsel to align with the needs of clients and their attorneys. Yet we stand ready to handle the full scope of services needed by clients in disputes and litigated matters. We provide this representation with our usual commitment to value, efficiency, and effectiveness.

 

We can assist in a variety of ways, including:

 

• Prepare and file motions including pro hac vice admissions

• Advise on strategy and local rules

• Handle personal service and next day filings

• Ensuring compliance with time periods for filing discovery

• Providing out-of-state attorneys with background intelligence on local judges and arbitrators.

• Serving subpoenas for documents and testimony.

• Filing and arguing motions to compel compliance with subpoenas.

• Domesticating subpoenas and foreign judgments.

• Enforcing judgments against California based judgment debtors.

• Drafting pleadings

• Making court appearances

• Taking or defending depositions

• Attending mediations, arbitrations and/or trial

• Trial preparation and practice

 

To find out more about our General Counsel and Local Counsel services, contact us today to speak with a member of our legal team.