Business and Transactional Law
Attorney in Metro Detroit
I handle business formation, contracts, real estate transactions, and the purchase and sale of businesses for Metro Detroit companies, from my Livonia, Michigan office, with a second office in Farmington.
Admitted to the State Bar of Michigan in 1990.
Thirty-six years in Metro Detroit. Livonia office at 18306 Middlebelt Rd.
Counsel for the Business Owner
Who Signs the Checks
Thirty-six years in Metro Detroit, based in Livonia
Most of my business clients are the person whose own money is on the line. They own the company, or they are buying one, or they are selling the one they built. There is no general counsel down the hall and no budget for learning on the job. Every dollar they spend on legal work is a dollar out of the business.
I have been doing this work in Metro Detroit since 1990. Business formation, contracts, real estate transactions, and the purchase and sale of businesses. It is the part of my practice I have grown most deliberately, and it is the part where the work is least visible, because when it goes well nothing happens. No dispute, no lawsuit, no year of your life spent in a courtroom.
What I offer a business is continuity. When you call, you are not explaining your company from the beginning to somebody who has never heard of it. I already know what you do, who your partners are, and what you signed last year, because I was the one who read it.
What I Handle for Michigan Businesses
Buying or Selling a Business
Asset and stock purchases, letters of intent, purchase agreements, and the diligence that determines whether the number on the offer is the number you actually get. This is the work I am brought in on most often, and it is the work where an hour spent early saves the most later.
Business Formation and Structure
Setting up the entity, the operating agreement, and the ownership terms, including the parts people skip because the business is new and everyone still gets along. Partnership terms written while everyone is happy are the cheapest insurance a business ever buys.
Contracts
Drafting, reviewing, and negotiating the agreements a working business actually signs: vendor and supplier terms, service agreements, leases, and the contract somebody sent you this morning that you were about to sign.
Real Estate Transactions
Commercial purchases and sales, leases, and the transactional side of property, handled under the same roof as the business it belongs to.
Day-to-Day Counsel
The short phone call. Most of what a business actually needs from a lawyer is not a project, it is a five-minute answer from somebody who already knows the company, before a decision turns into a problem.
How I Work With Business Clients
I will tell you when something is not worth doing. A significant part of transactional work is deciding what actually needs a lawyer and what does not, and I would rather lose the hour than bill you for it. That is not generosity, it is how a business relationship lasts longer than one deal.
You will get a straight read on cost and timeline before the work starts, including when the honest answer is that a deal has more risk in it than the price justifies. The decisions are yours. My job is to make sure you are making them with the same information I have.
"I'm not going to touch something I don't know."
I do not take work I do not know. If your matter needs something outside what I handle, I will tell you in the first conversation rather than learn it at your expense.
The Same Attorney for the Rest of Your Legal Life
A business owner's legal life is not only the business. Over thirty-six years I have watched the same clients come back for very different reasons: the contract first, then a dispute with a supplier, then a divorce, then an accident, then their kid.
That is the practical argument for keeping it in one place. You are not starting over with a new lawyer every time, and the person handling the new matter already knows your history, your business, and how you make decisions.
I handle criminal defense, personal injury, family law, civil litigation, business and transactional law, and insurance defense. That range is not a menu. It is what thirty-six years of a general Metro Detroit practice actually looks like.
When a Deal Becomes a Dispute
Most transactional lawyers have never tried a case. Most litigators were not in the room when the agreement was written. I have spent thirty-six years doing both, and the two jobs inform each other constantly.
When I draft an agreement, I am reading it the way I would read it across a courtroom, because I have read a lot of other people's agreements that way. When a deal does go wrong, you are not handing your file to a stranger and paying somebody to learn what you already told me.
That is not a promise that nothing will go wrong. Contracts are broken, partners fall out, and deals collapse for reasons no document prevents. It is a promise that the person who wrote it will be the one who handles it.
Common Questions About Business and Transactional Law
Business and transactional law is an established part of Robert Akouri's practice and has been since he began practicing in Metro Detroit in 1990. He handles business formation, contracts, real estate transactions, and the purchase and sale of businesses, alongside criminal defense, personal injury, family law, civil litigation, and insurance defense from his Livonia office.
Robert Akouri handles asset and stock purchase transactions, letters of intent, purchase agreements, and the diligence and contract work that goes with them. He also handles the entity and ownership structure underneath the transaction, and the commercial real estate side when property is part of the deal.
Ready to Talk?
Akouri Law offers a free initial consultation.
Call the Livonia office, tell me what you are working on, and I will tell you plainly whether it is something I handle and what the next step looks like.