Areas of Practice
- Acquisition or sale of businesses, including both asset and stock acquisitions and sales.
- Employment agreements and consulting agreements.
- Construction contracts and subcontracts.
Service agreements. - Equipment leases and purchases.
- Real estate leases and subleases.
- Purchase order terms and conditions and order acknowledgment terms and conditions.
- Software development agreements.
Intellectual property agreements, including patent, trademark, and software licenses. - Confidentiality agreements.
- Mechanic’s lien release forms relating to construction projects.
- Premises security and premises access agreements.
- Utility development agreements.
- Product development agreements.
- Strategic alliance agreements.
Our lawyers view their role as helping our clients achieve the best terms available consistent with achieving the client’s goal of completing the transaction. We strive always to find creative ways to resolve issues which could otherwise threaten a transaction.
Corporate Law
Stanley, Lande & Hunter lawyers represent numerous business entities, including non-profit and profit corporations, limited liability companies, and various forms of partnerships. Our lawyers in this area have extensive experience in the following areas of general corporate practice:
- Organizing profit and non-profit corporations, including preparing and filing Articles of Incorporation and By-laws to organize and provide for the internal governance of the corporation and structuring the corporate board and voting of shares to deal with corporate control and succession issues.
- Preparing amendments to Articles of Incorporation and By-laws.
- Organizing limited liability companies, limited partnerships, and partnerships, and preparing related organizational documents.
- Negotiating and drafting buy-sell agreements among corporate shareholders, partners, and LLC members.
- Negotiating and preparing documents relating to corporate mergers, both consensual and hostile, and for corporate consolidations and dissolutions.
- Processing regular corporate filings, including annual reports.
- Qualification of corporations to do business in other states.
- Preparation of corporate resolutions and minutes of Board of Directors’ and Shareholders’ meetings.
- Advice and counsel regarding duties and liabilities of corporate directors and officers.
Stanley, Lande & Hunter lawyers have represented financial institutions for many years, and we have also assisted our clients in obtaining financing from other sources. Our experience includes negotiation and drafting of:
- Commercial loan agreements, including term-loan agreements and revolving lines of credit agreements.
- Mortgages, deeds of trust, security agreements, and financing statements.
- Subordination and non-disturbance agreements.
- Collateral assignments of leases.
- Loan workout agreements and voluntary turn-over of assets of debtors.
- We have helped our clients obtain tax increment financing for industrial and commercial projects, including urban renewal projects, tax abatement and rebate procedures, enterprise zone benefits, economic development grants, and public infrastructure assistance.
- In different cities and different states, we have exercised primary responsibility for industrial development revenue bond issues for industrial developments, health care facilities, hotel renovation, and professional offices. We have represented many clients in obtaining small business development loans through the Iowa Finance Authority.
Stanley, Lande & Hunter employment and labor law lawyers provide a full-service complement of management representation on labor and employment issues. Among other things, lawyers in this practice group regularly:
- Represent employer clients in matters before the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, the EEOC, and various local human rights commissions.
- Represent employer clients at trial in cases involving allegations of illegal discrimination, most recently including matters of race and disability discrimination as well as sexual harassment.
- Enforce employer clients’ rights under covenants not to compete, including relief through temporary and permanent injunctions and contempt hearings.
- Negotiate settlement of employee claims through formal mediation.
- Defend employer clients in litigation arising from employee conduct, including allegations of defamation.
- Represent employers at unemployment benefits hearings.
- Work with federal, state, and local governmental agencies, including recently the Iowa Occupational Safety and Health Administration in a matter arising from the workplace death of an employee and the federal Department of Labor when an employer failed to meet its payroll obligations.
- Counsel employers concerning their rights and obligations involving termination of employees and reasonable accommodation of employees with disabilities.
- Assist with the initial handling of sexual harassment complaints and arrange investigations along with follow-up on such matters.
- Represent employers in claims against employees, including matters involving employee embezzlement and matters arising from employer property retained by employees after discharge.
- Review and revise employer clients’ personnel handbooks and draft customized personnel policies.
- Counsel employers regarding drug testing procedures and requirements.
The firm produces a periodic newsletter, Legal Update, free of charge for employer clients, which provides a regular update on employment law topics and issues. Attorneys in this practice group present seminars on employment law topics, including presentations on the topics of workplace privacy, affirmative action, hiring, drug testing, employment law in the construction industry, and employment termination.