It is later than ideal and nowhere near too late. Until an agreement is signed, the Ontario Business Corporations Act and your articles decide everything — who controls the board, how shares transfer, what a departing shareholder keeps — and the statutory defaults are rarely what the shareholders would have chosen. The harder part is that the shareholders now have real positions to protect, so the agreement is negotiated rather than assumed. That is normal at this stage, and it is the firm’s most common starting point with an established company.

It depends on what was signed when the shares were issued, and often the answer is that nothing was. Without vesting or leaver terms, a departing founder keeps what they hold. What the company can do then turns on the articles, any agreement in place, and what the remaining shareholders are prepared to offer. The firm’s job is to establish the position quickly, structure a buy-back or a settlement if one is possible, and paper the departure — shares, IP, confidentiality, release — so it does not resurface at the next financing or sale.

Yes, and the sequence matters more than it did at the start. The plan needs shareholder approval and a pool that fits the cap table; the exercise price needs a defensible basis once the shares have value; and the tax treatment for the people receiving options depends on how the company and the grant are structured. The firm handles the plan, the approvals and the grants, and works with your accountant on the valuation and tax side.

Readiness first: a cap table that reconciles to the share register, a minute book that matches what actually happened, IP assigned to the company, and a shareholders’ agreement that can absorb the new instrument. Then the company side of the instrument itself — the note or SAFE terms, the conversion mechanics, the approvals — and, for a priced round, the subscription agreement, investor rights and the amended shareholders’ agreement. Most established companies raise more than once, on more than one instrument, so the firm builds each one to convert cleanly into the next. Finding the gaps before the term sheet is considerably cheaper than having the investor’s counsel find them after it.

With shares that are earned rather than given, and a cap table restructured to make room. That usually means restricted shares or options with vesting and a cliff, a valuation the existing shareholders accept, the resolutions and issuances that record it, and an amended shareholders’ agreement that the new partner signs on the way in. Done at the start, it protects everyone; done informally, it is the departure problem in a few years’ time.

Often not the company, until someone checks. Code, brand, data and product built by founders before incorporation, by employees without an IP clause, or by contractors with no assignment, can sit with the individuals who created it. The firm establishes what the company actually owns, obtains the assignments that are missing, and sets up the employment, contractor and licensing terms so it does not drift again. It is the first thing an investor or buyer will look at, and one of the easiest to fix in advance.

Yes, from the first conversation, and it is usually better if the accountant is in the room. At this stage most corporate decisions are also tax decisions — a reorganisation, a holding company, a share class, an option plan. Your accountant owns the tax; the firm owns the corporate documents that make it real; and the firm’s work is to make sure the two describe the same company. The firm does not give tax advice and does not compete for your accountant’s work. See Working with professional advisors.

In phases. After the consultation and conflict check, an engagement letter sets out the first phase — usually the written review — with a defined budget. Each further phase is scoped and agreed before it starts, so you know what it covers and what it will cost before you decide to proceed. Nothing runs open-ended. See Fees & Engagement for how the firm scopes and engages.

That the documents are negotiable, within limits, and that most companies sign them as sent. A general security agreement typically covers all of the company’s present and future property; guarantees put shareholders’ personal assets behind the company’s debt; postponements subordinate shareholder loans to the bank; and covenants can restrict dividends, further borrowing and changes of control. The firm reviews the package against the company’s actual position, identifies what to push back on, and makes sure the other shareholders have approved what is being given.

Yes, on the corporate side. The oppression remedy under the Ontario Business Corporations Act protects shareholders and certain others against conduct that is oppressive or unfairly prejudicial to their interests, and the exposure depends heavily on what the company’s own documents allowed and how decisions were actually made. The firm establishes that position, advises on the steps available short of court — disclosure, a buy-out, a negotiated exit — and where it proceeds to litigation, coordinates with litigation counsel while continuing to advise the company on its corporate affairs. The firm does not itself appear in court.

Both, in a defined order. Your accountant designs the tax structure — the holding company, the trust, an estate freeze, a share exchange — and advises on the consequences. The firm then builds the corporate side: incorporating the holding company, articles of amendment for new share classes, the share exchange agreement, the resolutions, and registers that record what happened. The firm works from the accountant’s plan and does not second-guess the tax; it makes sure the documents carry it.

Before the buyer does. Most of the value lost in a sale of a founder-led company is lost in diligence, when the buyer finds what was never documented and prices it. A pre-transaction review — minute book, cap table, contracts, IP, employment terms — a year or even six months ahead lets those things be fixed quietly rather than negotiated under pressure. The firm handles the clean-up and then the transaction itself, and works with your accountant on the structure of the sale.

Yes. For a company that has regular corporate questions — a contract a month, a board decision, a new hire with equity, a shareholder matter — Ongoing Counsel Support configures defined annual counsel capacity after intake, with the same principal on the other end of the phone. Several of the firm’s longest relationships began with a single matter and became this.

Then the corporate documents on the Canadian side have to work with the other jurisdiction, and the firm is set up for that. For the Gulf, the firm is licensed in both Canada and the UAE and handles both sides directly — see Canada–UAE. For the United States, the firm engages directly with you and delivers the US-law work through its alliance with a US firm — see Canada–US.

Not yet, though the same firm is. For a company that is incorporating, setting founder terms, building a team or preparing to raise a first round, the firm’s Structured Legal Systems — Launch, the Workflow Kits and Ongoing Counsel — are built for exactly that stage, with defined scope and published pricing. This page is for the company those founders become.