Your Legal Support System for Corporate and Business Law
At Smith Schafer Davis LLC our clients’ success is important to us. At Smith Schafer Davis, we serve Nebraska's small businesses, family enterprises, and agricultural operations. From forming a new LLC to planning a multi-generational business transition, our team provides practical legal guidance focused on each client's goals and risk tolerance. With a licensed CPA on our legal team, we address both the legal and tax dimensions of every business decision. Our team provides advice and guidance while focusing on each client’s goals and risk tolerance. From business formation to the sale of a business, Smith Schafer Davis can help you with your business and corporate needs.
Business Formation and Structuring
Selecting the correct type of entity is a strategic decision that lays the foundation for your business's success. We offer insights to help you navigate this crucial choice. Whether you're considering a partnership or a corporation, LLC and S-corporation, we guide you in choosing the structure that aligns with your business goals, provides the legal framework necessary for growth, and considers tax consequences.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Smith Schafer Davis represents clients in a wide range of small-scale dealings to large, complex negotiations. Our practice includes thorough due diligence, innovative strategy formulation by our attorneys, and efficient handling through to closing. At every phase, prioritizing our clients' interests is at the core of our work.
Business Contracts
Clear and concise business contracts are vital for successful operations. Our focus is on negotiating, drafting, and finalizing business contracts that safeguard your interests. We make sure that each agreement is tailored to meet your goals and protect your business from potential disputes.
Corporate Governance
Whether assisting a small business in establishing its organizational framework and policies or guiding a large corporation through fiduciary responsibilities and financial reporting obligations, Smith Schafer Davis delivers customized counsel to support companies in reaching their strategic goals.
Effective corporate governance is crucial for businesses of every scale. It plays a key role in managing sibling disputes in family-owned enterprises and enables larger corporations to uphold a strong reputation while adeptly navigating the fast-paced changes inherent in today's business landscape.
Buy-sell agreements
Agricultural business structuring (family farm LLCs, multi-generational operating agreements)
Employment and independent contractor agreements
Nonprofit formation and governance
If you're a business owner, it's likely that your business is your most significant asset. Have you thought about how to enhance the value of your business to ensure a financially secure retirement? Consider how you'll safeguard this value against legal challenges, the departure of crucial employees to competitors with your sensitive information, or unforeseen events like your death or incapacity. Additionally, have you established a strategy for transferring your business to your children, key employees, or an outside buyer? Smith Schafer Davis LLC can guide you in developing comprehensive plans for these critical aspects of business ownership.
Strategic tax planning is integral to business success. We'll assist you in crafting plans that optimize your tax position while ensuring compliance with regulations.
Business Law – FAQs
1. What does a business attorney help with?
A business attorney supports your company through every stage of its life — choosing and forming the right entity, drafting operating agreements and bylaws, negotiating contracts with customers, vendors, and employees, handling commercial real estate and financing, advising on buy-sell agreements between owners, and planning for the eventual sale or transition of the business. Beyond transactional work, a good business attorney is someone you call before a problem becomes a lawsuit.
2. What type of business structure should I choose?
It depends on your goals, ownership, and tax situation. Most Nebraska small businesses operate as LLCs because of their liability protection, flexible management, and pass-through taxation. S corporations can offer self-employment tax advantages for owners actively working in the business. C corporations make sense for companies seeking outside investors or planning to retain earnings at the corporate level. Sole proprietorships and partnerships are simple to form but offer no liability protection. We help clients weigh the tradeoffs and choose the structure that fits both today's operation and tomorrow's plans.
3. Do I need an attorney to draft business contracts?
You don't strictly need one, but a well-drafted contract is one of the best investments a business can make. Online templates and AI-generated contracts often miss the terms that actually matter when something goes wrong — indemnification, limitations of liability, dispute resolution, termination rights, and remedies. We draft and review contracts for purchases and sales, services, leases, employment, independent contractors, non-disclosure, non-compete, and ownership transitions. A few hours of attorney review up front routinely prevents litigation costing many times more.
4. How can a business lawyer help prevent legal issues?
By being involved before decisions become disputes. That means keeping your entity in good standing with annual filings, maintaining accurate records and meeting minutes so the corporate veil holds up, putting clear written agreements in place between owners and with key employees, reviewing contracts before you sign rather than after, and addressing succession and buy-sell terms while everyone is still on good terms. Clients who treat their attorney as part of the team — not just an emergency contact — tend to spend less on legal issues, not more.
We’re only a phone call away! Call (402) 223-5257 and let us know how we can assist with your legal needs.