Legal Business Advice
What We Do
We advise on the legal and commercial considerations that shape how a business is structured, governed, and protected. This includes entity selection — company, trust, partnership, or a combination — as well as the agreements and governance arrangements that define how owners, partners, and family members interact within and around the business. Our advice covers partnership agreements, buy-sell agreements, shareholder arrangements, succession planning, and the structuring of family business interests across generations.
Choosing the right structure is only the starting point. Maintaining it properly — with clear governance, documented agreements, and provisions for what happens when circumstances change — is where most of the practical value sits. We help clients establish and maintain arrangements that reflect their commercial intentions, manage risk appropriately, and hold up when tested by events such as a partner exit, a dispute, a death, or a change in business direction.
Structuring decisions do not sit in isolation. The entity you choose, and the agreements that sit around it, directly affect your tax position, your exposure to personal liability, the options available for bringing in or removing stakeholders, and how ownership transitions when the time comes. These are interconnected considerations, and they need to be addressed together.
What This Covers
Company Structuring Advice
Advice on proprietary company establishment, holding company arrangements, corporate trustee structures, and the governance framework needed to support compliant and commercially sound operations under the Corporations Act.
Trust Structuring Advice
Guidance on the selection and establishment of discretionary trusts, unit trusts, and hybrid trusts — including deed provisions, appointor and trustee arrangements, and beneficiary class considerations.
Family Business Advice
Structuring family-owned businesses to manage the intersection of commercial operations, family relationships, and wealth transfer — including family trust arrangements, intergenerational planning, and governance protocols.
Partnership Agreements
Preparation and review of partnership deeds covering profit and loss sharing, capital contributions, decision-making authority, dispute resolution, and the terms under which partners may join or leave the arrangement.
Buy-Sell Agreements
Agreements that define what happens to a business interest on death, disability, retirement, or voluntary exit — including valuation mechanisms, funding arrangements, and trigger event provisions.
Succession Planning
Planning the transition of business ownership and control — whether to family members, existing partners, key employees, or external buyers — structured to manage tax consequences and maintain operational continuity.
Governance & Compliance
Establishing and maintaining governance frameworks — director duties, meeting procedures, minute-keeping, ASIC compliance, and the internal processes that keep a business structure operating within its legal requirements.
Business Restructuring
Reorganising existing business structures to reflect changed circumstances — entity rollovers, asset transfers between related parties, consolidation or separation of business activities, and demerger arrangements.
Shareholder & Unitholder Agreements
Agreements governing the rights and obligations of shareholders or unitholders — including pre-emptive rights, drag-along and tag-along provisions, dividend policies, and deadlock resolution mechanisms.
Why It Matters
Most business disputes, succession failures, and costly restructures trace back to arrangements that were either never properly documented or were set up without adequate consideration of what would happen when circumstances changed. A handshake agreement between partners works until it does not. A trust deed drafted without thought to future needs creates problems that are expensive to unwind.
Proper legal and commercial structuring protects the people involved in the business — from personal liability, from disputes with co-owners, and from unnecessary tax consequences on exit or succession. It also protects the business itself, by providing clear rules for governance, ownership changes, and decision-making that hold up under pressure.
Our Approach
Our legal business advice follows a structured process, adapted to the nature and complexity of each client's circumstances:
Understanding Your Objectives
We start by understanding what you are trying to achieve — commercially, financially, and personally. This includes your current ownership arrangements, the relationships between stakeholders, and the direction you want the business to take.
Structure Analysis
We review your existing structures and agreements — or assess your position if starting from scratch — identifying gaps, risks, and areas where the current arrangements do not align with your stated objectives.
Options & Recommendations
We present clearly defined options with an honest assessment of the tax implications, costs, asset protection characteristics, and practical trade-offs of each approach. We recommend what we consider the most appropriate path and explain why.
Documentation & Implementation
We prepare or coordinate the preparation of the necessary documents — trust deeds, company constitutions, partnership agreements, shareholder agreements, buy-sell agreements — and handle the associated registrations and notifications.
Ongoing Review
Structures and agreements need periodic review as circumstances change — new stakeholders, changes in law, business growth, or personal events. We conduct regular reviews to ensure your arrangements remain fit for purpose.
Applied Across Industries
Structuring and governance requirements vary significantly by industry. A professional services partnership faces different considerations from a family-owned construction business or a healthcare practice with multiple principals. We adapt our advice to the regulatory environment and commercial norms of each sector.
Professional Services
Partnership structuring, incorporated practice arrangements, and succession planning for professional firms
Real Estate
Property holding structures, development joint ventures, and trust arrangements for real estate investments
Construction
Contractor entity structuring, project-specific arrangements, and family business succession in the trades
Healthcare
Practice structuring for medical and allied health professionals, service entity arrangements, and multi-practitioner governance
Food & Agribusiness
Family farm structures, generational succession planning, and primary production trust arrangements
Technology
Startup entity structuring, shareholder agreements for co-founders, and equity participation arrangements
Discuss Your Legal Business Advice Requirements
Whether you are establishing a new business structure, reviewing existing agreements, or planning for succession, we can discuss how our legal business advice services apply to your circumstances.