BUSINESS, CORPORATE, BANKING

Grinnell Smith’s business, corporate and banking practice group provides a full range of legal services to broad spectrum of clients, including individuals, start-up firms, established commercial and non-profit corporations, commercial banks, insurance agencies, medical practices and other healthcare sector companies, and personal service and consulting firms.

Our attorneys have extensive experience with mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic advice, structuring shareholder relationships, executive compensation plans, commercial lending and finance, leasing, and project finance. We routinely negotiate and advise our clients on contracts, licensing and franchise agreements, employment agreements, and a wide range of intellectual property matters.

We provide skilled advice to our clients on matters of corporate governance, including advising boards of directors and their committees on best practices and compliance matters, and creating and tailoring governance documents to suit our clients’ specific needs and requirements.

Our banking practice draws from our years of experience representing numerous local and regional banks. Our experience includes acquisition finance, project finance, financial institution lending, workout and mortgage foreclosure matters. Coupled with our wealth of knowledge on real estate, environmental, intellectual property, and UCC matters, our banking practice efficiently and skillfully manages the normal and unique requirements of our sophisticated clients.

ESTATE PLANNING AND ADMINISTRATION

Grinnell Smith’s estate planning practice group consists of a team of lawyers with decades of combined experience handling a wide variety of issues. We represent wealthy individuals in accomplishing their estate planning objectives, business owners concerned with passing their business to their grown children, parents seeking to protect and provide for their young children, and families of Medicaid (or “Masshealth”) recipients who seek to navigate the complex regulations about planning for nursing home care. We focus on client needs and desires, within the framework of the frequently changing estate tax laws, which we review with each client. We regularly assist clients with charitable planning, which not only provides tax benefits, but allows individuals to support organizations and causes important to them, and to perpetuate and to instill their values in future generations. We encourage all clients to update their estate plans every 5 years or so, and sooner if the client has moved to a new state, or if personal or financial circumstances have changed.

In the estate administration area, we counsel family members after the death of a loved one, and assist them in the probate and tax filings required, as well as in accounting and distribution of estate assets. We handle large and small estates, and have developed a well deserved reputation for delivering these services with compassion and clarity.

NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

Nonprofit organizations are not only challenged with the same issues as commercial entities, but face the additional challenges posed by virtue of their tax-exempt status and public oversight. Grinnell Smith LLP has many years of experience counseling nonprofits and problem-solving issues of organizational governance for entities in crisis, entities seeking to ensure their continued viability with succession planning and financial stability, and entities that are stable but wish to understand and implement better practices in governance. The firm has assisted community groups and individuals in establishing and structuring nonprofit entities and private foundations and assisted nonprofits with financing and financial re-structuring. The commitment of the lawyers of Grinnell Smith LLP to serving on boards of directors gives them a valuable perspective in delivering legal service to nonprofit organizations.

REAL ESTATE, ZONING, AND LAND USE

Our lawyers have experience across a wide spectrum of real estate matters, from residential purchases and sales, to the representation of landlords and tenants in commercial leasing, to land use planning, zoning, and environmental permitting. We represent homebuyers and sellers throughout Berkshire County. In addition, we regularly represent commercial lenders and borrowers with the financing required for development projects located throughout the region. Our attorneys are experienced in the planning and permitting of a wide range of real estate development projects, including residential subdivisions and condominiums, commercial and mixed-use developments, academic buildings and museums, and wind turbine developments. We help our clients negotiate with local and state permitting boards, represent them at local and state hearings, and help find creative paths to the best use of their properties.