Business Services and Litigation

Savage Villoch Law, PLLC is proud to serve the legal needs of businesses in Tampa, St. Petersburg (Florida) and throughout the nation. Our business law firm provides ethical, experienced and dedicated legal services for businesses by providing legal advice for all stages of your business’s lifecycle.

• Business Services
• Business Dispute Resolution
• Preventing Contract Disputes
• Top 5 Contract Tips

From business formations to business operations and dissolutions, we provide comprehensive legal and consulting services to business owners, including:

• Business entity selection
• Business formations: LLCs, C-Corps, S-Corps, partnerships
• Drafting and review of business contracts
• Drafting and review of employee contracts
• Negotiation of business contracts and agreements
• Negotiation of employment agreements
• Corporate record keeping (special meetings, minutes, annual meetings)
• Employee manuals/handbooks
• Assistance with leases LLC operating agreements
• Separation agreements Independent contractor agreements
• Business sales and purchases
• Due diligence for mergers and acquisitions
• General business consulting

In our capacity as business consultants, we provide service nationwide. We are pleased to consult clients in the Tampa area, and we also assist clients across the nation. If you are a business owner in Florida, New York, New Jersey or anywhere throughout the nation, we are pleased to offer our business consulting services by our experienced and qualified business lawyer to you.

We are dedicated to providing the highest standards of legal service that is attentive, diligent, ethical and highly qualified. The founder of our firm, attorney Robert Savage, has extensive business and legal experience. Mr. Savage has an MBA in addition to his J.D., and he has represented business clients in a wide range of legal matters since 1994. Mr. Savage is a former regulator for the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), was in-house counsel for a brokerage firm, and currently owns a business in addition to serving as the chief operating officer of our law firm.

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At Savage Villoch Law, PLLC, we help businesses resolve disputes. We help clients focus on solutions rather than obstacles in order to achieve victories. Our firm believes that prevention, mitigation and creative solutions can be effective in avoiding costly litigation. Therefore, we offer business consulting services as well as business dispute resolution services to meet our client’s needs.

From communications to arbitrations and trial, business dispute resolution is a continuum. The resolution process evolves with the challenges that each case presents. Therefore, a clear path to resolution that works in one case cannot be expected to serve as the only strategy for dispute. As an experienced business dispute resolution firm, we tailor our services to each client and each case.

Litigation can be time-consuming and costly. Therefore, we believe that litigation is our last resort in resolving business disputes. However, it can help parties involved in a dispute reach creative solutions. Often, when parties become entrenched in their positions, it is only at the moment before trial when clients are ready to contemplate new solutions to old problems.

Pre-trial negotiations and mediations are often a way in which the parties can work out a solution that is likely more satisfying than any verdict rendered at trial. Clients maintain control over the amount of time and money put into achieving an agreement and maintain control over the process. In addition, whereas trials are a matter of public record, mediations are kept confidential – which is often essential in business matters.

In each case we handle, we seek to help our client find the most efficient and productive solution to the legal challenges he or she faces. The founder of our firm, Attorney Bert Savage, is a business owner with an MBA and a J.D. He has been successfully representing business owners in a variety of business legal matters since 1994. He assists clients in mediation, arbitration or litigation. His depth of knowledge and his practical experience have proven effective in resolving complex business disputes.

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At the start of a new business venture, you may think a contract is unnecessary – after dozens of planning meetings, you’re all on the same page. So you throw together a basic contract that outlines the work to be done and the payment amount. But when a dispute arises down the road, there’s no easy resolution without a contract to which all parties can refer.

A well-drafted contract will include specific deadlines for project completion. Phrases like “work will be completed in a reasonable amount of time” or “work will begin in a few months” are vague and subject to interpretation. The contract should also include a timeline of the project, which will help all parties gauge whether the contract will be completed on time.

Work done under the contract must be completed on time and correctly. The contract must establish how the quality of the work will be determined. It could be based on passing city or other required inspections, or passing federal safety regulations. Whatever the standard, it must be clearly outlined in the contract.

It sometimes becomes necessary for one party to terminate the contract before work is completed. An early termination or opt-out provision allows the parties to get out of the contract before a total breach occurs. The contract can provide for partial payment for work completed.

Not a provision to include, but perhaps the most important tip of all. Investing the time and money now to have an attorney review the contract can save you tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours of legal negotiations later. An experienced contract dispute attorney can point out terms and contract terms that are ambiguous, problematic, or even missing from the contract, which can help avoid disputes during the life of the contract.

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The best way to avoid a business contract dispute is by drafting a clear contract. The Contract Dispute Attorneys in Tampa at Savage Villoch Law, PLLC can explain to you that ambiguous, poorly worded contracts are the source for many unnecessary disputes. To help avoid such problems, here are five tips for drafting a successful business contract:

1. Write in Plain English: You won’t impress anyone by including a lot of Legalese and gibberish in your contract. Be precise and to the point. You should use words that most people understand.
2. Negotiate with Decision Makers: You don’t want to waste your time hammering out the details of a contract with someone with no signing authority.
3. Details, Details, Details: While you should keep the language of the contract simple, you should still make sure to include all the necessary details of the deal. Your contract dispute attorneys in Tampa can help you think of every likely contingency and ensure that those are addressed in the contract.
4. Dispute Resolution: Your contract needs to be clear on what happens if one of the parties fails to live up to the terms of the deal and how a dispute will be resolved. For example, the contract should address the governing law and whether a judge or arbitrator has jurisdiction to resolve the dispute.
5. Termination: Your contract should also be clear on when either party has the right to terminate the agreement. The termination clause can kick in for situations such as failure to pay and missing timelines.

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To discuss the specific details of your case with an experienced attorney, you should contact the law firm of Savage Villoch Law, PLLC. Call us at 813-200-0013 to learn more about how we can help you.