Family Business Disputes

In Brief

• Apart from their critical importance to the U.S. economy, family business disputes can be devastating for those involved, as family business disputes tend to be ugly, protracted, and destructive.
• Lawyers must recognize typical sources of conflict, particularly what might be considered the central problem of business law: those who control a resource and use it disproportionately for their own benefit.
• There remains a need to apply standard judicial remedies for abuse of control, mostly developed in the corporate law context, which protect the parties’ reasonable expectations.