The Best Attorneys and Accountants of 2011

This summer, NY Report held its second annual “Best Attorneys and Accountants for Growing Business Awards” to recognize advisors who not only serve their clients well in their accounting and legal needs, but actually lend their experience and expertise to help these clients strategically grow their businesses. Here we spotlight the winners and take a closer look at how a few of them made a positive impact on their clients’ businesses.

To see a full list of winners, plus photos from the 2011 event, click here.

Planning for the Succession Dilemma

Lou Grassi, Grassi & Co.

“Succession planning is a huge problem for entrepreneurial companies,” says Lou Grassi, 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award winner in the accounting category. “It’s one of those issues that business owners don’t want to address because they are busy with the day-to-day issues.” This was certainly the case for one of Grassi’s clients, a family-owned construction contractor where four individuals owned 80% of the organization. Those four individuals were approaching retirement age and the company had no way to fund owner buyouts.

While the company had been around for more than 100 years, it was clear that for the first time in its history, ownership would not be passed down within the family. Grassi identified not only a need to address the rapidly approaching problem of retiring partners, but the need to put into place an ownership transition process as a way to deal with succession in the future. After looking over all the facts and circumstances, Grassi recommended and facilitated the institution of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) for the company. By establishing this plan, Grassi helped the client effectively fund owner buyouts, partially by paying the retiring owners in years prior to their actual retirement, and allowing for an orderly and functional transition to the next generation of leadership. The ESOP also created a marketplace into which shareholders could sell their stock and the sales allow shareholders to trade in their stock with a minimal tax liability.

This plan effectively paid retiring owners, created a self-perpetuating and tax-favorable succession process, and ensured the company’s financial stability in the transition to the next generation of leadership. “No one gets excited when you hand them a financial statement or a tax return, but helping with the strategy is very rewarding,” says Grassi.

All Business is Becoming Global

Michelle Marsh, Kenyon & Kenyon

There was a time, not long ago, when intellectual property issues were fairly cut and dried. You could decide on a name for your business and have it trademarked in the US. That process has completely changed with the growing reach of the internet.

The 2011 Best Attorney winner in the technology category, Michelle Marsh of Kenyon & Kenyon says that with the internet’s sprawling reach and the popularity of social media around the world, trademarks and branding should now be cleared in international markets, as well as here in the US.

Her client, Neato Robotics, is a startup that creates robots designed to perform household chores. Marsh advised Neato Robotics to protect their trademarks before launching their first product. She worked with the company to develop a comprehensive trademark clearance and registration campaign designed to protect the company’s marks in the United States and abroad. Realizing that e-commerce could play a significant role in the company’s sales strategy, she also developed a program to register domain names relevant to the company’s business and capture domain names that had been improperly filed by cybersquatters.

With their trademarks properly protected, Neato Robotics was able to focus their efforts on introducing their product to the market, rather than scrambling to protect against intellectual property infringement.

She had another client who began marketing their brand and failed to realize a business in a foreign country already had a Facebook page by the same name. Not only were consumers easily confused, but Marsh’s client had little control over how that foreign company reflected their brand.

“It’s like the old expression, ‘Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, you can’t put it back in,’” says Marsh. “If there is another company doing business online with a similar brand name anywhere in the world, it could cause problems for you. Every company that has a brand has the same issues, it’s not just technology or internet companies,” says Marsh.

Growth Requires Risk

Corey S. Kupfer, Hamburger Law

Corey S. Kupfer, 2011 Attorney of the Year and Best Advisor in the general corporate law category, believes that a closely held company should choose advisors that understand risk, not avoid it. “So many attorneys are trained to avoid all risk, but you can’t grow anything in business without taking risks,” says Kupfer.