Franchise & Distribution

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Bradley’s franchise lawyers have a proven track record of helping clients start, grow, manage, and protect franchise systems. We work with clients to successfully navigate complex legal and regulatory requirements, achieve strategic goals, and anticipate and overcome business challenges.

Our attorneys have decades of experience in representing clients in each critical aspect of the franchise process, including:

  • Structuring and negotiating transactions
  • Conducting due diligence
  • Complying with franchise sales laws
  • Protecting intellectual property
  • Developing and enforcing system standards
  • Managing franchisor-franchisee relations
  • Resolving disputes
  • Mastering the unique demands of international expansion
The brand is key to any franchise system, and our intellectual property attorneys help franchise clients protect this critical asset. In addition to handling trademark registrations, our attorneys help clients enforce their rights when infringement and misappropriation occur. We handle disputes involving trademarks and trade dress in courts across the country, as well as before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.
Our lawyers deliver pragmatic advice to clients on choosing business structures that make legal and economic sense. Our team is experienced in drafting and negotiating franchise agreements, area development agreements, international master-franchise agreements, and other franchise and distribution contracts in a wide range of industries. We also work with clients on avoiding “inadvertent franchise” relationships
We help clients comply with federal and state laws and regulations governing their franchise offerings, including the FTC’s Franchise Rule and each applicable state’s requirements. We draft disclosure documents that are clear as well as compliant. We also advise clients on the legal issues involved in all forms of franchise sales and marketing, including the use of new media.
Our attorneys offer legal advice that takes the unique needs of each franchise system into account. We advise clients on developing operating policies for employees and guidelines for franchisees, setting up distribution and supply chain systems, dealing with distributors and other vendors, and enforcing system standards.
We have decades of experience in helping clients navigate the issues that arise during the growth and development of relationships between franchisors and franchisees and relationships between dealers and distributors. These include dealing with advisory councils and dealer associations, implementing system changes, addressing defaults and terminations, enforcing non-competes and other post-termination obligations, handling transfers and renewals, and protecting assets when insolvencies occur.
We look for the most efficient and effective ways to resolve disputes for our clients, including all forms of alternative dispute resolution. When litigation is necessary, we have a deep bench of experienced trial lawyers who can get to court as quickly as the situation warrants. We litigate and arbitrate disputes involving claims of infringement and misappropriation of intellectual property, wrongful termination, antitrust violations, false advertising, breach of contract, and unfair trade practices, among others. We have extensive experience in handling class actions as well.
Our attorneys have substantial experience in representing investors, lenders, and borrowers, bringing a depth of knowledge and skill in both traditional and state-of-the-art financings. We handle acquisitions, buybacks, sales, securitizations, loans (including Small Business Administration compliance issues), and joint venture agreements, from due diligence to closings and beyond.
In addition to our domestic work, we draft agreements and negotiate deals for expansion into other countries. Our intellectual property attorneys have an extensive network of foreign agents for registering trademarks in countries around the world.