FOR BUSINESS OWNERS IN A PARTNER OR LLC-MEMBER CONFLICT
Get a plan from a partnership dispute attorney before the standoff gets expensive: document review, a privileged strategy session, a written options memo, and an attorney demand letter on firm letterhead — for a $2,500 flat fee.
- Selected to Illinois Super Lawyers 2025-2026
- Attorneys admitted in Illinois, Wisconsin & New York
- Harvard Law-trained deal counsel
The Dispute Is Already Running. The Only Question Is Who Has a Plan.
Maybe the distributions stopped. Maybe you have been quietly cut out of the bank account, the books, or the decisions — or you are staring at a 50/50 partner who will not agree to anything, including a way out. The company still has customers, payroll, and a reputation, which is exactly why you have been absorbing it: you are trying not to break the thing you built. Meanwhile the emails get sharper and nothing gets decided.
Waiting has a price, and so does improvising. Deadlock stalls banking, hiring, contracts, and growth while the company’s value erodes underneath both of you. Self-help — locking a partner out, sweeping accounts, unilateral firings — can convert your strong position into claims against you, because co-owners in Illinois owe each other fiduciary duties that courts take seriously. And the operating agreement you have not read since signing may be running clocks right now: buyout notice windows, deadlock procedures, transfer restrictions. The partner who moves deliberately, on the record, usually frames the endgame; the one who reacts supplies the evidence.
This package makes you the deliberate one. A partnership dispute attorney reads your operating agreement and the record, maps your rights under the agreement and the Illinois LLC Act, and works the plan with you in a privileged session — then puts your position on the record with a demand letter your partner’s lawyer has to answer. Based in Illinois with our commercial litigation practice behind it, serving owners in Chicago and statewide.
What Your Flat Fee Buys
- Document review. Your operating, partnership, or shareholder agreement with amendments, plus the key correspondence and records that define the fight — read by an attorney before you say a word in the session.
- 90-minute privileged strategy session. A working meeting, protected by attorney-client privilege: what happened, what the documents actually allow, and what you want the endgame to look like.
- Written options-and-leverage memo. Your rights and exposure, the realistic paths — negotiated buyout, statutory remedies, litigation — what each costs, and the sequence we recommend, in writing.
- Attorney demand letter on Howard East letterhead. Drafted to your approved strategy and sent — or, if you received a demand, the response that answers it. Your position, on the record, framed by counsel.
- Delivered within ten business days of your document upload.
The Credentials Behind the Strategy
- Selected to Illinois Super Lawyers, 2025-2026
- Attorneys admitted in Illinois, Wisconsin & New York
- Deal counsel trained at Harvard Law School (J.D.) — buyouts and exits are deals, and we paper them like deals
- Former Series 7 & 66 securities licensee on the team — valuation and buyout mechanics read with a finance eye
- Regulated-industry licensing experience across seven states
How the Partnership Dispute Package Works
1. Book and pay the flat fee. One price, quoted here, before any work begins. Conflict check runs first; if we cannot take the matter, you are not charged.
2. Upload your documents securely. The governing agreement and amendments, a short timeline of events in your own words, and the correspondence that matters. Our portal is confidential and encrypted. 3. Attorney review, then the strategy session. We read everything first, so the 90 minutes are spent on strategy, not summary. 4. Written memo plus the demand letter. You receive the options-and-leverage memo, approve the strategy, and we send the letter on firm letterhead.
Scope, in plain terms: the flat fee covers the document review, the strategy session, the written memo, and one demand letter (or one response to a demand you received). Negotiation beyond the letter, mediation or arbitration appearances, and litigation are a separate engagement — scoped and quoted in writing before any additional work begins, and only if you decide to proceed.
Tell Us What Is Happening — Confidentially
We respond within one business day. Your information stays confidential.
Questions Owners Ask a Partnership Dispute Attorney
How do I remove a business partner in Illinois?
Start with the documents. Your operating agreement, shareholder agreement, or partnership agreement controls whether a co-owner can be expelled or bought out, and on what terms. Absent those provisions, the Illinois LLC Act gives you limited self-help: courts can dissociate a member or dissolve the company in defined circumstances, such as serious misconduct, but there is no general right to fire a co-owner. The realistic paths are a negotiated buyout or a court-supported exit — and sequencing them correctly is most of the strategy session.
What happens in a 50/50 LLC deadlock?
If the operating agreement includes a tiebreaker — a buy-sell provision, put/call rights, required mediation — that mechanism controls. If it does not, a true 50/50 deadlock can leave the company unable to act, and Illinois courts may order dissolution where it is no longer reasonably practicable to carry on the business. Deadlock burns value while it lasts: banking, payroll, contracts, and growth decisions all stall. The strategy session maps your options before the freeze does more damage.
What is a business divorce?
It is the informal term for separating the co-owners of a company — a partnership, LLC, or closely held corporation — by buyout, redemption, sale of the business, or dissolution. Unlike ordinary litigation, the goal is usually not a judgment; it is an exit at a defensible price that keeps the operating business intact. Many business divorces resolve by agreement, on terms shaped early — which is why the first documented moves matter more than owners expect.
Can a minority LLC member be frozen out?
It happens: distributions stop, information dries up, the majority hires itself and votes its own pay. But minority members are not without rights. Illinois law imposes fiduciary duties on those in control, gives members books-and-records rights, and allows courts to grant remedies where those in charge act illegally, oppressively, or fraudulently. What a freeze-out usually reveals is that the majority expects no organized pushback. A documented demand, grounded in the operating agreement and the statute, is how pushback starts.
What does a partnership dispute lawyer cost?
Partner litigation is typically billed hourly and can run long — these cases are document-heavy and emotionally charged, which multiplies hours. That is why Howard East front-loads the strategy: for a $2,500 flat fee you get the document review, a privileged strategy session, a written options memo, and the demand letter, before you commit to litigation spend. If the dispute proceeds beyond the letter, we quote that engagement separately, in writing, first.
Do I have to sue my business partner?
No — and filing first is not always the strongest move. Many partner disputes resolve through negotiated buyouts, mediation, or the exit mechanics already written into the operating agreement, without a complaint ever being filed. Litigation is one lever, and it works best when the groundwork — the record, the valuation posture, the statutory claims — is already in place. The strategy session exists to choose the right lever deliberately, instead of reacting to whatever your partner does next.
Attorney Advertising. Howard East is a business law firm; attorneys are admitted in Illinois, Wisconsin & New York. This page provides general information about Illinois law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Flat-fee scope is defined above; engagement terms are confirmed in writing after a conflict check.