John is a member of the firm’s Business Law Group and Family Business Law group. John’s primary practice is comprised of two separate but related areas: (i) counseling family-owned and closely held businesses; and (ii) buying and selling businesses, and in many cases, acting as a general counselor for the business on an ongoing basis after the transaction is completed.

Counseling Family Owned and Closely Held Businesses

John’s work in this area is extremely varied and from the broadest standpoint, John acts as a virtual in-house counsel to these businesses.  In this “in-house counsel” role, John learns about the business, the owners, the objectives, and outlook of the owners, and then combines this information with his legal knowledge and the expertise of colleagues at Barley Snyder to provide counsel to the business on legal and business related issues. John has been involved in specific family-related matters such as succession planning, developing both advisory boards and boards of directors with outside directors, developing family councils, facilitating family meetings, navigating owner disputes, and negotiating and implementing Shareholder Agreements (Buy-Sell Agreements). Of course, John also advises on general business issues such as contract review and negotiation, real estate purchases or sales, employment issues, strategic planning, and general business strategy.

Barley Snyder is also one of the founding members and a current corporate sponsor of the S. Dale High Family Business Center at Elizabethtown College. John leads the firm’s efforts at the Center and is a frequent speaker and a regular resource for the CEO Roundtable and Emerging Leaders Groups at the Center.

Buying and Selling Businesses

John regularly represents clients buying or selling businesses. This representation can include very complicated transactions involving mergers of entities, multi-level financing and equity arrangements, earn-out provisions, and floating purchase prices or straightforward deals as well as advising clients on the proper entity to form for a purchase, negotiating and drafting letters of intent and term sheets, guiding the due diligence portion of the investigation, negotiating and securing financing, analyzing financing options, determining value, and leading the team of advisors in the negotiation of the deal.

Outlook

John finds working with family businesses and their owners extremely rewarding. Barley Snyder has a tradition of representing generation after generation of family businesses. Family business owners have a very different outlook and approach to business than the Fortune 500s. The family business owner does not base his or her decisions on what will maximize profits for the next month (and his or her bonus), but rather makes decisions keeping in mind that he or she is just holding the business in trust for the generations to follow. These owners make decisions that will benefit the business in the long run to ensure the business survives from generation to generation. John understands this approach and acts as a partner and strategic advisor with his family business clients.

In addition to his legal work and when he is not chasing his three sons, John is actively involved in the community. Since John arrived in Lancaster, he has made community involvement a high priority and believes the community is made stronger through dedicated volunteers and that a stronger community results in a strong and more stable business environment. The central Pennsylvania region is proof of that.