Franchise Law

Helping you expand your brand! Our experienced Franchise lawyers can provide you with everything your company will need to package, launch, and maintain a successful and profitable franchise system. Whether you are just starting out or already franchising, we can help you.

Shelton & Power is a Franchise, General Business and Intellectual Property law firm dedicated to helping you.  Our attorneys have been business executives, franchisors / business opportunity leaders (with over 700 units nationwide), and have the cumulative experience of over 23 year's business experience. We understand your objectives, needs, fears, and business problems, which is why we dive in with no fear to solve your problems. With offices in Texas and Florida, the S&P Franchise Team counsels clients ranging from start-up and emerging companies to mature, established franchisors, and budding entrepreneurs looking to purchase their first franchise system.  To help all types of franchisors and franchisees, we have measured all variables thereby allowing us to charge fixed fees for almost all of our services. The Fixed Fee services allow you, the business person, to make your yearly budget without the fear of legal fees bouncing out of control because of changing situations that almost always occur.

FRANCHISEES
Buying a franchise? Shelton&Power can assist you by analyzing your investment and by assisting you in negotiations to make sure you are getting the best investment possible.  S&P’s fixed fee FDD Review program gives you an attorney on your side of the bargaining table. S&P will institute the creation of the right type of business entity for your business model. After creation of your legal entity, S&P will begin the process of reviewing your Franchise Disclosure Document that you received from the Franchisor. We will analyze your investment and provide you with a written Analysis and Opinion Letter which includes a thorough Industry Evaluation of the franchise system being offered to you against Industry Fairness Factors. We will then take the time to explain all areas of the franchise that are and are not in line with industry standards for your particular industry and which conditions are contrary to state or federal law. We also will give written suggestions of what areas should and should not be negotiated with the franchisor. If you choose, S&P will even complete the Negotiations for you.

NEW FRANCHISORS
If you are taking the initial steps in franchising your business, you know that the journey ahead of you holds some of the most challenging and rewarding paths you or your business will ever encounter. Our attorneys “COME TO YOU.” During meetings with you, we focus on various executive, strategy and "franchise best practices", where we help you make qualified decisions and guide you through the planning and structuring phases. S&P will then institute the creation of your business entity, the Franchise Disclosure Document, all relevant Exhibits, Registering the trademarks to protect your business identity, and Registration of your individualized Disclosure Document in all desired Registration and Business Opportunity States.  Along with these features, we go even further in depth to create working agreements with your existing vendors and business partners to help your franchise system grow into a smoothly-operating regional, national or global system. After the initial launch, S&P sticks with you through thick and thin to provide ongoing legal services for quarterly disclosure document updates, advertising review, negotiations, franchise agreement drafting and general franchise advice for a similarly analyzed fixed fee. We pride ourselves on delivering outstanding quality at an affordable price.  Coming from small business backgrounds, the last thing S&P wants is for a franchisor to stop and consider whether they can afford their legal fees. With S&P, we welcome you to call whenever you need legal advice.  This is why we have chosen to institute flat fee options for ongoing franchise legal services.

FRANCHISOR MARKETING AND LEGAL COMPLIANCE SERVICES
S&P's Marketing and Legal Compliance Program is a new strategy for the franchisor. Our Marketing and Legal Compliance Managers take the leads that they receive from the franchisor, and after our attorneys make sure all requests meet the legal requirements, they screen, follow-up and prepare the leads to be qualified candidates for the franchisor.
For the franchisor this is an invaluable service, because along with freeing up the franchisors time, the franchisee now has knowledge of the franchisor and the business they are striving to get into, and are prepared and ready to move on to their new business venture. The rationale behind this program is that as business owners, we know how hard it is to wear multiple hats. We strive to perform solid and productive follow-ups on all franchisee leads and stick with them until they signed a franchise agreement.

ESTABLISHED FRANCHISORS
Once your franchise system begins to mature and expand, you will undoubtedly find yourself answering a new set of dilemmas. S&P’s Franchise Team partners with franchisor executives to help them proactively list and answer these new challenges in order to maintain strong franchisor-franchisee relationships and limit disruption in the growth of their franchise system. Our legal contacts help emerging franchisors make informed decisions about best practices utilized by successful franchisors to effectively team with franchisees, and vendors to ensure solid operations standards and effective sales compliance.

From start-up and emerging franchisor companies to entrepreneurial franchisees, turn to Shelton&Power at every stage of their business growth.

For more information please contact:

Lynne Shelton: (512) 535-0090
Jason Power:   (813) 625-9590
Steve Shelton:  (512) 535-0090