Franchising is a highly-specialized legal and business arrangement. In a typical franchise relationship, one party, called a franchisor, licenses its trademarks and proprietary business methods to another party, called a franchisee, in exchange for royalties and other fees.
Franchising involves other detailed rights and obligations and is regulated under state and federal law. At Pugh Accardo, we provide a variety of legal services intended to facilitate the success of existing and emerging franchised business-owners and entrepreneurs.
Services for existing and emerging franchisors:
Drafting, evaluation, registration and renewal of the Franchise Disclosure Document (“FDD”)
including single-unit and area-unit FDDs and Item 19 best practices
General ongoing legal advice about regulatory compliance issues
including state-specific and pre-sale compliance issues
Drafting and evaluation of single-unit franchise agreements, multi-unit and/or area representative agreements, vendor and supplier agreements, personal guaranty agreements, alternative dispute resolution provisions, and related ancillary agreements
General ongoing legal advice about franchisee relations, system-wide expansion, and strategic repositioning
General ongoing legal advice about protecting existing trademarks and intellectual property
Negotiating and finalizing all aspects of new sales, transfers, renewals and terminations
Minimizing and avoiding franchise litigation costs and, when necessary, advocating before state and federal courts and in binding arbitration proceedings
Services for emerging and existing franchisees
Evaluation of existing franchise opportunities
including FDD review and “validation”—i.e., a process for communicating with existing franchisees