Recent News

Small and closely held corporations routinely neglect to maintain corporate formalities such as conducting an annual shareholder meeting. An annual shareholder meeting is required by the Washington Business Corporation Act. Many times annual meetings are not held simply because the owners of the business lack the experience necessary to conduct a satisfactory shareholder meeting. Many… Read More

On July 5, 2011, Division One of the Washington State Court of Appeals in Dutch Village Mall v. Raymond Pelletti affirmed the longstanding rule that a corporation must be represented by a lawyer in order to litigate its rights in court.  The facts of the case are familiar to many corporations: Dutch Village Mall (“DVM”)… Read More

In a recent Washington Supreme court case (known as “Sound Infinity”), our court approved the majority shareholders’ ouster of a minority shareholder notwithstanding the minority shareholder’s objections.  The case has far reaching implications for closely held corporations and limited liability companies, because (among other things) the court ruled that "in a small, closely held corporation,… Read More

Representing several union pension trust funds against a defaulting employer, Beresford Booth lawyer William O. Kessler successfully obtained a lump-sum payment of over $530,000. Pension payments by the employer corporation to the union trust funds had been personally guaranteed by the corporation’s principals. One of those principals was the single member of an LLC owning… Read More