We recently settled a partnership dispute for our client, who was withdrawing from his partnership and threatened with non-payment of his equity in the business on account of a non-compete.
In truth, this story is a cautionary tale about how some businesses are penny-wise and pound foolish.
"What do you mean by that?" you ask.
Simple; rather than hiring an attorney who specializes in drafting partnership agreements, and customizing it to be clear, and making sure it reflects everyone's understanding of their respective obligations under the agreement (which wasn't the case here), they decided to save a few dollars, and draft it themselves.
And they almost ended up in full-blown, bare-knuckled litigation, including a rush to the courthouse to prevent the partnership from wrongfully cashing in our client's life insurance policy for its cash surrender value (instead of keeping it in force, as they were obligated to do).
Instead, I'm happy to report that cooler heads prevailed, and the parties were able to work out an amicable solution, where our client walks away with what he was entitled to - plus, and notwithstanding the non-compete clause contained in his underlying partnership agreement, we were able to secure for him the ability to move on to a new job in a related, but not directly competing field, for a former client of his (and thereby earn a rather nice salary).
Not too bad at all.
