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Business Law, Economic Development and Corporate Counseling One of the many satisfactions of representing Indian tribes has been the ability to help tribes with business and economic development. We have seen many tribes move from poverty to prosperity. Most of our client tribes now have major economic enterprises. This ranges from mineral production, to factories, shopping centers, hotels, golf courses, and, of course, now casinos. In all of these areas there is land to be purchased, loans and other financing to be negotiated, construction contracts to be negotiated and let, leases and other business arrangements to be made, employment contracts and policies to be drafted, disputes to be resolved, businesses to be bought and sold and managed. We advise and assist our clients with these activities, and if additional expertise is needed with respect to a certain transaction, we help bring in the necessary consultants.
Economic development involves creation of physical, financial, and legal infrastructure as well as a wide variety of business activities, including gaming and the development of natural resources that are dealt with more extensively in other sections of this web-site. But there, as in other business activities, finding the best way to structure, capitalize, and carry on the enterprise, negotiating and drafting agreements, seeing that they are audited and faithfully performed, resolving disputes, avoiding litigation -- but litigating where necessary -- has been an important part of our work with our clients. We say "with our clients", rather than "for our clients" because in any planning or negotiation we make sure that there is a client team or committee and that we work with them as part of that committee, so that the end result is something the client is comfortable with and has helped shape.
In addition, many of our Alaska Native clients have organized for-profit and not-for-profit corporations under Alaska law. This, in turn, requires substantial counseling on corporate law issues, including: Board governance; shareholder rights; corporate election issues, including proxy voting; business formation issues, including choice of the proper entity (corporation, LLC, LP, or LLP) and Articles and Bylaws drafting and review; corporate restructuring; executive employment issues, including employment agreements and internal investigations; insurance and liability issues, including insurance policy review, indemnification agreements, and risk assessments; commercial real estate issues; contract drafting and review; federal and state Native contracting preference programs, including the Small Business Administration's 8(a) program; and a wide array of other business counseling issues.
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