Our fashion industries practice has attorneys with more than 25 years of experience each representing fashion companies. Our attorneys work with both start-ups and larger, nationally known brands and companies, including manufacturers of clothing, footwear, headwear, jewelry, handbags, luggage, cosmetics, and other fashion accessories, as well as local, regional, national and international retailers.
In addition to handling corporate structuring and formation, we represent clients in the formation, acquisition and protection of trademarks and copyrights in the United States and throughout the world, as well as in the negotiation, documentation and enforcement of licensing, manufacturing and distribution agreements for local, regional and worldwide markets.
WG becomes an integral part of your team to provide all legal services a fashion business requires throughout its life cycle, for example:
Start-up:
- Entity selection, formation and documentation
- Information, options and the WHY behind the type of entity (e.g. C-corp, S-corp, LLC or partnership) and jurisdiction/state of formation
- All equity incentive plans, whether stock options, profits interests or alternative mechanisms
- Initial Capital Raise (if any)
- We handle all aspects of your initial financing, whether that be a “friends and family” or “seed” round, preferred equity, convertible note offering or SAFE note
- Intellectual Property
- We can help you establish and protect your brand, including registration and/or filing all trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and patents.
- Commercial leasing/real estate (if any)
- We help you negotiate and finalize a lease or purchase of real estate for your business.
Launch:
- Labor
- Employment agreements
- Contractor, consultant and advisor agreements
- Intellectual Property and confidentiality agreements
- Website/Ecommerce
- All guidance and documentation to launch and run your digital presence, including, privacy policies, terms of use, ecommerce and ongoing compliance
- Manufacturing
- Negotiation and documentation of your relationships with your contract manufacturers, domestically and internationally
- Compliance matters in connection with packaging, labeling and marketing
- Fulfillment
- 3PL agreements
- Distribution
- Negotiation and documentation of all distribution relationships with distributors, wholesalers and retailers
- Marketing
- Collaboration agreements
- Influencer agreements
- Work-for-hire agreements with all outsourced creatives
Growth:
- Growth Capital
- At this stage, we help you complete your growth capital needs, which may include one or more of the following: priced equity rounds (e.g. Series A, Series B, etc.), convertible note offerings, SAFE notes, purchase order financing, lines of credit, and secured or mezzanine debt
- Advanced Structure
- Evaluate, inform and advise on corporate structure options to reduce/segment risk and provide for flexibility in growth and financing
- Outside General Counsel
- During growth, we act as your outside general counsel to handle your day-to-day legal needs as an intimate part of your team
- Intellectual Property
- Ongoing needs, which may include international trademarks to cover all appropriate territories worldwide
- Licensing agreements
- Litigation
- Pursue or defend legal claims that tend arise at this point in a company’s life cycle
Exit:
Finally, we assist you in evaluating and executing on your options to sale your business.
- Merger & Acquisitions
- Merging into an existing acquirer or selling the equity of your business to an acquirer
- Asset Sale
- Selling all or substantially all the assets of your business through an asset purchase agreement