Legal problems rarely show up on schedule. A customer stops paying. A landlord sends over a lease that runs forty pages. A partner wants out, or a former employee leaves with your client list. Winghart Law Group, Inc. is a business lawyer in Redwood City helping small and mid-sized companies handle these moments. Better yet, we help you plan ahead so fewer of them happen.
Our office sits at 495 Seaport Court, a few minutes from Highway 101 and downtown. Redwood City is the county seat, home to the San Mateo County Superior Court, which is where local business disputes land when they cannot be settled. We know the companies here because we are one of them. Call (650) 673-3219 and tell us what you are dealing with.
Legal Support for Growing Businesses
Growth creates paperwork, and paperwork creates risk. The choices you make in the first two years follow the company for decades. Picking between an LLC, an S corporation, and a C corporation affects your taxes and personal liability. It also shapes how you raise money later. So does the operating agreement nobody reads until the partners disagree.
We help founders and owners get the foundation right. That work includes entity formation, ownership and equity agreements, and bylaws. It also covers the first round of contracts a young company signs with vendors, customers, and employees. Many of the formation mistakes California owners make are cheap to prevent and expensive to unwind. A small business attorney who sets the structure correctly at the start can save you from paying a litigator to fix it in year five.
Startups get plenty of attention in this part of the Bay Area, and we work with them. We also work with the companies that keep the Peninsula running. Contractors, medical and dental practices, restaurants, retailers, professional firms, and family businesses preparing for the next generation.
Ongoing Business Legal Needs
Most owners do not need a lawyer every day. They need one who already knows the company when something urgent lands on a Tuesday afternoon. That is the role we play for our clients. It works like outside general counsel, without the cost of hiring one.
Ongoing work usually looks like this. Reviewing contracts before you sign them. Updating employee policies as California law changes, which it does almost every January. Collecting from customers who will not pay. Renewing a commercial lease on better terms. Answering the small questions between big projects, because a ten minute call now beats a ten month lawsuit later.
Some clients bring us matters one at a time. Others prefer keeping a business attorney on retainer so advice stays a phone call away. Either way, you work with the same people each time, and they already understand your business.
Contracts, Compliance, and Risk
A contract is a plan for the day the deal goes wrong. A corporate lawyer reads the indemnification clause, the limitation of liability, the termination rights, and the payment terms. Those sections decide who absorbs the loss when a project falls apart. We draft and negotiate partnership agreements, vendor and customer contracts, employment agreements, NDAs, and buy-sell agreements. Each one gets written for how your company operates, not pulled from a template.
California adds its own layer of rules. Wage and hour law, worker classification, and privacy obligations all carry real penalties when handled wrong. So do the permits and business licenses that Redwood City and San Mateo County require. We help you find the gaps before a regulator or an opposing lawyer finds them for you.
Risk also lives in the things that make your company valuable. Your name, your logo, your customer data, your processes. Our intellectual property practice protects trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. The goal is simple: a competitor should not get to copy the parts of your business that work. When a dispute cannot be avoided, our business litigation team pushes for a resolution through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration. If court is what it takes, we are ready for that too.
When to Hire a Business Lawyer
Owners usually call after a problem has hardened into a dispute. The work costs less and ends better when the call comes first. These are the moments when it pays to pick up the phone:
- Before signing a commercial lease, a major vendor contract, or a personal guarantee
- When bringing on a partner, an investor, or your first employees
- When buying or selling a business in California, where escrow, bulk sale, and tax rules catch unrepresented parties off guard
- The day a demand letter, a lawsuit, or a government notice arrives
- When a handshake deal starts to feel one sided
Waiting has a price. A contract reviewed before signing might cost a few hundred dollars. The same contract, litigated, can cost six figures and two years of your attention.
Not sure whether your situation needs a lawyer? Ask us. We offer prospective clients a free 30 minute consultation. If we are not the right fit, we will say so and point you toward someone who is.
Trusted Business Counsel
Drew Winghart founded Winghart Law Group, Inc. on a simple idea: your case is not just business, it is personal. Clients here are not file numbers. Because the firm stays small on purpose, we learn how your company makes money and what a win looks like for you. Then we shape the advice around your market, your business, and your budget.
Our team brings more than 100 years of combined legal experience to the table. We represent companies in Redwood City, San Carlos, San Mateo, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and across Silicon Valley. Clients come back each time a new issue surfaces, and that says more about the firm than any award could.
Call (650) 673-3219 or schedule a consultation online. The office is open Monday through Thursday from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM and Friday from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Bring the contract, the letter, or the question. We will tell you where you stand and what to do next.