Corporate Services

Our client's ability to negotiate better commercial contracts for goods and services creates substantial savings that benefit the client’s bottom line and get boardroom-level attention. Among our Am Law 200 peers, the Quarles & Brady Commercial Law Team is one of the few established groups dedicated to preparing, negotiating and managing commercial contracts.

Our Commercial Law Team brings knowledge, focus and skill to the preparation, negotiation and management of commercial contracts and supply chain issues that is unusual among law firms large or small. That knowledge, focus and skill advance our clients’ business goals, whether short-term or long-term, and whether with a client’s incumbent customer or vendor relationships or in a one-time transaction for a client. Throughout the process, we pride ourselves on our clients’ valuing our business advice as well as our legal advice.

We start with the basics about the business deal and the client’s goals, and we work closely with business team and in-house lawyer colleagues to identify the most efficient, cost-effective ways to manage the contracting, procurement and outsourcing processes.

We’ve trained our Team in complex commercial contract and supply chain issues, including seeing the long-term implications of an agreement and understanding how seemingly small details can affect the overall benefits the client is trying to achieve. Our Team members focus on the full range of issues that contracts involve, including UCC, e-commerce, antitrust, intellectual property, technology, the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods and other international issues.

Our clients are as varied as the types of commercial work we do for them, from smaller, precision manufacturing clients to multinational giants. We prepare, negotiate and revise hundreds of commercial agreements for them every year, and this provides us a diversity of perspectives and approaches to strategy, drafting and negotiation, which we share with our clients. That innovation and flexibility makes us better counselors to them.

Our commercial lawyers have practical experience in any number of areas, including:

• Preparing and negotiating major supply agreements for commodity and non-commodity purchases, often with values in excess of $100 million over the contract term, for numerous clients.
• Reviewing, developing and negotiating myriad other commercial contracts for a diverse client base — while analyzing each client’s specific concerns and business objectives — including transportation, energy, independent contractor, consulting, confidentiality, non-compete, distributor, franchise and sales representative agreements.
• Undertaking extensive reviews and revisions of form contracts and internal procedures for the purchase or sale of goods.
• Representing clients in many procurement contracting negotiations with international entities, including Chinese, European and South American businesses.
• Conducting in-depth analyses of individual procurement industries and competitive suppliers while accounting for a client’s unique perspective.
• Providing clients with “best practice” guidance on an array of issues related to purchasing, such as the advisability of “most favored nation,” alternate dispute resolution and choice of law provisions.
• Developing and negotiating numerous long-term manufacturing, fulfillment and outsourcing agreements, including international outsourcing agreements.
• Providing internal client training sessions regarding contracting practices, such as the use of form contracts and allocation of the risk of loss.
• Working with our Technology Law Team colleagues to provide commercial contracts that include technology law provisions that address software licensing, web site development and hosting, and data privacy and security issues, to name only a few.

In addition, several members of the Commercial Law Team are members of the Institute for Supply Management, and one member of the Team serves as the editor of the LexisNexis® treatise on International Agency and Distribution Agreements for over 60 countries.

For more information about how Quarles & Brady can help you with your commercial law needs, please contact Jennifer Clements at (414) 277-5349 / or your local Quarles & Brady attorney.