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As a boutique law firm focusing on specific practice areas, we take pride in offering elite level service and expertise within our chosen practice areas. This page lists those areas of the law where we can offer experienced, creative, and reliable legal counsel. We provide a variety of distinct legal services and we maintain an extensive professional network.
Business and Contracts
We regularly advise small business regarding organizational strategies, limiting liability, and negotiating and enforcing business contracts. The limited liability company is the most common form of business entity that we help create. As small business owners ourselves, we understand the need for elite level service at an affordable value. We have streamlined our processes to maximize efficiency for the benefit of our clients. Nobody seems to appreciate this more than our small business and entrepreneurial clients. We can help you form your company, legally operate your company, mitigate risk, resolve disputes, enforce contracts, defend against lawsuits and claims. Our primary goal is to help our small business clients focus on what they do best in the least risky, most legal manner. Commercial Real Estate, Land Use and Development McDonald Fielding attorneys handle all aspects of commercial real estate transactions. From acquisitions and dispositions to leases to financing, we cover all aspects of commercial real estate transactions. We routinely negotiate, draft, modify, and litigate commercial leases for all varieties of commercial real estate, including industrial/warehouse, office and retail properties. We handle all aspects of commercial evictions and abandonments. We help purchases and lenders in underwriting, due diligence, risk mitigation, documentation, and negotiation. We also assist lenders with the disposition, leasing, and management of REO/ORE properties, including conducting foreclosures and trustee's sales when needed. We work with a vast network of real estate brokers, agents, property managers, real estate investors, lenders, and other real estate professionals to provide the very best in commercial real estate services. Estate Planning - Wills, Trusts, Asset Protection, and more The attorneys at McDonald Fielding are trusted estate planning and asset protection counselors. We assist with everything from simple wills and basic estate plans to complex plans with strategic asset protection elements. A typical, basic estate plan often consists of several documents, including a trust, a will, a power of attorney, an advance healthcare directive, a person property disposition list, and proper beneficiary designations. Others may need more complex asset protection planning, business succession planning, special needs trusts, etc . Not everybody needs all the same documents. Sometimes a trust doesn’t make sense, though it often does. Everybody ought to have a will, even if you have a trust. A power of attorney can be extremely helpful in certain rare, but still very real, circumstances. An advance health care directive can also be helpful, and often gives significant peace of mind. Those with significant assets, or in a high-risk employment or business sector, may benefit from customized solutions that include asset protection and business succession planning. We also assist with making sure all your accounts (banking, brokerage, retirement) have the best beneficiary designations based on your goals and circumstances. Redevelopment, Community Reinvestment, Economic and Community Development (Tax Increment) We act as both general and special legal counsel to Community Reinvestment Agencies (also known as Redevelopment Agencies or Community Development and Renewal Agencies) in Utah. We perform this work on either flat fee or hourly arrangements, depending on each client's preference. We have represented, or currently provides legal counsel to, redevelopment agencies across the State of Utah. For some Agencies, we act as general counsel and provide services on a regular and continual basis, while for other Agencies, we act as special counsel on an as-needed basis. Civil and Commercial Litigation McDonald Fielding offers litigation services and support in just about every aspect of civil litigation, from the simplest breach of contract to complex, multiparty, multiclaim litigation. Our attorneys have successfully tried numerous cases in state and federal court. Dan McDonald is a graduate of the National Trial Academy in Reno, Nevada, and is a seven-time recipient of the "Legal Elite" designation for business litigators and trial attorneys by Utah Business magazine. Fair Housing The Fair Housing Act and associated statutes such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act are complex in and of themselves. But when these statues interact with parallel state statues and local land use and zoning ordinances, the degree of complexity can be stifling. Dan McDonald has traveled throughout the western United States to help local governments as well as group home and RTF developers and operators navigate these complexities. He advises all county members of the Utah Counties Indemnity Pool through a group home and RTF "hotline." He has successfully defended local governments in Fair Housing lawsuits, most recently defending the City of St. George, Utah, against a seven-million dollar claim in the United States Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. He has also helped group home and RTF developers successfully prosecute Fair Housing Act requests for reasonable accommodations and lawsuits, recently helping a RTF developer process an accommodation request and providing key FHA testimony to help the developer obtain a multi-million dollar jury verdict against Boise County, Idaho. Dan is available to provide consultations and training to local governmental units, expert testimony, as well as litigation support and services in Fair Housing Act cases involving group homes or RTFs. |