Florida Business Attorney

Most business disputes in Palm Beach County end up in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, and those in Broward County in the Seventeenth, and the choice of court, the claims you plead, and the deadline you are racing all depend on what kind of problem you actually have. The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team is a Florida business law firm that handles business transactions and litigation, partnership and member disputes, real estate litigation, injunctions, and outside general counsel work for owners and investors in Palm Beach County, Broward County, and across South Florida.

Hiring a Florida business attorney usually happens at one of two moments: before a deal or a dispute gets out of hand, or after one already has. Both are workable, but they call for different tools. A well-drafted operating agreement can head off a deadlock; a missing one leaves co-owners relying on statutory default rules. A contract claim has a clock that depends on whether the agreement was written. Money that has gone missing from a company account may call for an emergency injunction rather than a slow lawsuit.

The sections below cover how business disputes are actually resolved in South Florida, what the key limitation periods are, how LLC and corporate dissolution works, and what to do in the first days of a problem.

Why Choose the Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team as Your Florida Business Attorney

The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team represents business owners, investors, and families in Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and throughout Palm Beach and Broward Counties. Schwartz has spent 37 years in litigation. He was admitted to The Florida Bar in 1989, earned his undergraduate degree from Emory University in 1986, and received his law degree from the University of Miami in 1989. His work has centered on complex contract disputes, business divorces, and conflicts among partners, LLC members, and shareholders.

Senior Counsel Sundeep Nath, a Northwestern-trained litigator, brings years of experience in business and real estate cases in both state and federal courts. That matters in South Florida, where a dispute can end up in the circuit courts of either county or in the federal Southern District of Florida, depending on the parties and claims.

The firm practices as a true legal team: everyone working on a matter knows the file, so a client who calls gets an informed answer. There is a strict 24 hour return call policy when the attorneys are in court, and conference calls are scheduled at times that work for everyone. The firm is experienced in mediation and arbitration as well as courtroom litigation, and it looks for the resolution that fits the client’s goals and budget rather than prolonging a case.

Trial experience is part of the record. After a 5-day bench trial, a Broward County circuit judge entered a 32-page final judgment awarding the firm’s client specific performance of a commercial real estate contract. A significant share of the firm’s work also comes from other attorneys, including out of state lawyers whose clients have Florida disputes, and the firm handles local court appearances for clients from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut so they do not have to travel for every hearing.

Business Problems a Florida Business Lawyer Handles

• Business Divorce: Co-owners who can no longer work together face deadlocked management, buyout negotiations, valuation fights, and sometimes judicial dissolution. The right path depends on the entity type and what the governing agreement says.
• Partnership and LLC Member Disputes: Disagreements over contributions, profit splits, minority owner treatment, and breaches of operating or shareholder agreements often turn on the exact wording of the documents and the history of how the owners actually dealt with each other.
• Complex Contract Litigation: Purchase agreements, operating agreements, commercial leases, loan documents, and construction contracts all generate disputes where one clause or one course of dealing decides the outcome.
• Missing Funds and Fiduciary Breaches: Unpaid distributions, diverted company money, commingled accounts, and managers who cannot account for funds support claims for an accounting, breach of fiduciary duty, and recovery, sometimes alongside an emergency injunction.
• Family Business Disputes: Siblings who inherited a company, parents and children with different visions, or in-laws who share ownership face control and compensation questions that require discretion as well as firm financial protection.
• Partition and Title Disputes: Co-owners of real estate who cannot agree can ask a court to divide the property or order it sold. Quiet title actions clear competing ownership claims.
• Injunctions and Emergency Relief: Temporary and permanent injunctions can freeze assets, stop a transfer, or preserve a property while the case proceeds.
• Outside General Counsel: Ongoing contract, compliance, and operational advice, including serving as a company’s registered agent, often keeps a disagreement from becoming a lawsuit.

The Clock on Florida Business Claims

Deadlines are where many business cases are won or lost before they begin. A legal or equitable action founded on a written instrument has a five-year limitation period. If the contract was oral or implied, the period drops to four years. A suit to rescind a contract also has four years. Fraud claims run four years from discovery, with an outer limit of 12 years.

Specific performance is the one to watch: an action seeking it carries a one-year period. A buyer or seller trying to force completion of a real estate or business sale cannot sit on the claim. Negligence claims have a two-year period, as do professional malpractice claims other than medical malpractice, which run from when the claim was or should have been discovered. The two-year negligence period applies to claims accruing after the 2023 reform of the statute, which left the written-contract period untouched.

Real property has its own rule: Florida bars a suit to recover land unless the claimant or a predecessor held possession within seven years before filing. Adverse possession claims rest on seven years of continuous possession, and the person asserting one must file a return with the property appraiser that includes a full legal description. Because these periods interact with notice provisions, tolling arguments, and the specific wording of your agreement, a deadline calculation should be done early rather than assumed.

How LLC and Corporate Disputes Reach a Judge

When owners cannot resolve a dispute themselves, Florida’s statutes supply the remedies. For an LLC, a member or manager can ask the circuit court to dissolve the company on several grounds: activities conducted unlawfully, it not being reasonably practicable to operate under the articles and operating agreement, controlling owners acting or expected to act illegally or fraudulently, assets being misappropriated or wasted to the company’s injury, or deadlocked owners who cannot break the impasse while irreparable injury to the company is threatened or occurring.

Dissolution is not the only outcome. In such a proceeding the court can appoint a receiver or custodian after a hearing with notice to the parties, or order a purchase of the petitioning member’s interest. If the operating agreement contains a deadlock sale mechanism and it is started before the court finds deadlock, that contractual process takes the place of a judicial dissolution order.

Corporations follow a parallel track. A shareholder can petition a circuit court for dissolution on statutory grounds, including that the corporation has abandoned its business and failed to wind up within a reasonable time. In that kind of proceeding the corporation, or if it does not act, one or more shareholders, may elect to buy the petitioner’s shares at fair value. If the parties agree on value and terms within 60 days of the first election, the court enters an order on those terms, and the election is generally irrevocable. The corporation must notify the other shareholders within 30 days that they can avoid dissolution by electing to buy. During the case, the court may issue injunctions, appoint a receiver or custodian, and take other steps to preserve company assets. Filing for dissolution on certain grounds does not cost a shareholder the right to use a compliant deadlock sale provision in a shareholder agreement.

This is why the governing documents matter so much. The leverage in a business divorce often comes from what the agreement says about buyouts, valuation, and deadlock, which is exactly where counsel involved before a dispute earns its keep.

What to Do When a Business Dispute Starts

Start by securing records. Operating agreements, shareholder agreements, bank statements, tax returns, ledgers, emails, and texts between owners are the raw material of nearly every business case, and access can narrow quickly once relations sour. Copy what you are legally entitled to, and do not take or alter anything you are not entitled to; that can create its own problems.

Stop making informal concessions. Statements to a partner, even by text, can later be used to argue waiver or an agreement you never intended. If money appears to be leaving the company, raise it through counsel promptly, because emergency injunctive relief depends on showing that harm is imminent, and delay undercuts that showing. Do not stop paying obligations or cut off a partner’s access on your own; unilateral moves often hand the other side a claim.

Next, identify your forum. In Palm Beach County, circuit civil cases are heard in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, centered at the main courthouse in West Palm Beach, with branch courthouses serving other parts of the county. In Broward County, the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit hears circuit civil matters, and its complex business division handles matters such as the dissolution of certain business entities and large business and construction litigation. Where parties are from different states or federal law is involved, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, which sits in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach among other places, may be an option.

Finally, ask whether the dispute must go to court at all. Many agreements require mediation or arbitration first, and many disputes settle through negotiation once both sides see their real exposure. A good first consultation should end with a realistic view of deadlines, the likely forum, the cost range, and whether a negotiated exit or a lawsuit is the better route.

Partition, Title, and Commercial Lease Issues

Business disputes frequently involve real estate. A partition action in Florida is brought in chancery and the complaint must describe the land, name the owners and where they live, and state what share each holds. The court can divide the property, with three commissioners appointed to evaluate it, or if division would prejudice the owners, order a public sale with proceeds split by ownership share. A court-ordered sale on credit generally requires at least one-third of the price paid down unless all parties agree otherwise.

If the property is inherited by relatives as tenants in common, Florida’s Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act can change the process. When a court finds the property qualifies, partition must proceed under that act unless all co-owners agree otherwise in a record, and a partition in kind requires findings about how a division would affect the cotenants as a group.

Quiet title actions let a court determine ownership and remove a cloud on title. They can be filed in any county where part of the land lies, and the plaintiff generally must trace title back at least seven years unless the court orders otherwise. For commercial and residential landlords and tenants, Florida’s statutory notice rules control: a nonpayment demand gives the tenant three days, excluding weekends and court-observed legal holidays, to pay or leave, while a curable non-rent violation gets a seven-day cure notice. Accepting partial rent does not by itself waive the right to terminate, but it requires the landlord to follow specific steps. Errors in these notices are a common reason evictions fail.

Common Questions About Hiring a Florida Business Attorney

When should a business owner hire an attorney instead of handling a problem alone?

Early involvement pays off when the dispute touches your ownership interest, company funds, a real estate contract, or an agreement with a deadline. If a limitation period or a notice requirement is running, waiting can cost you the claim itself.

What is a business divorce?

It is the separation of co-owners of a company, whether partners, LLC members, or shareholders. It can end in a negotiated buyout, a sale, a structured wind-down, or court-ordered dissolution when the owners cannot agree.

Can I force a partner out of my Florida LLC?

That depends on your operating agreement and what the partner did. Many agreements include buyout, expulsion, or dissociation provisions, and Florida law provides remedies when a member’s conduct is serious or the company cannot function. An attorney needs to read the agreement before advising you.

How long do I have to sue for breach of contract in Florida?

Five years if the contract is in writing, and four years for oral or implied contracts. A claim for specific performance has a shorter one-year period, so those cases cannot wait.

What can I do if a partner is taking company money?

You may have claims for breach of fiduciary duty, an accounting, conversion, and recovery of the funds. In urgent situations, a court can issue injunctive relief to stop assets from being moved or spent while the case is pending.

Does every business dispute end up in a courtroom?

No. Many resolve through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration, and some agreements require those steps. The firm has experience in alternative dispute resolution as well as trial work and pursues whichever path best fits the client’s goals and budget.

My operating agreement has a deadlock sale clause. Does that block a dissolution lawsuit?

Not automatically, but timing matters. If the clause is properly started before the court finds that deadlock grounds exist, the contractual process applies in place of a judicial dissolution order. Which side initiates, and when, can change the outcome.

If my partner makes a buyout election in a corporate dissolution case, can they back out?

Generally no. An election to purchase a petitioning shareholder’s shares is irrevocable unless the court finds it equitable to set it aside or modify it. If the parties agree on value and terms within 60 days, the court enters an order on those terms.

Which Broward County court handles a large business dispute?

The Seventeenth Judicial Circuit has a complex business division that hears matters such as dissolution of certain business entities and large business and construction litigation. A case can be directly filed there only by following the circuit’s administrative order, which includes submitting a specific form with the initial filing.

I live in New York and my partner is in Florida. Do I have to travel for hearings?

Generally not for every proceeding. The firm regularly represents clients from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, handles the local court appearances, and keeps you informed at each stage, with conference calls scheduled around your availability.

Can another attorney refer my case to your firm?

Yes. A significant part of the practice comes from referrals by other lawyers, including out of state attorneys and Florida lawyers who do not handle business litigation. The firm communicates with referring counsel throughout and respects the existing client relationship.

Is outside general counsel worth it for a small company?

For many owners, yes. Regular access to a litigator for contracts, compliance, and operational questions, including having the firm serve as registered agent, can head off the disputes that otherwise become lawsuits.

Serving Business Owners Across Palm Beach and Broward Counties

Our work as a Florida business law firm starts in Palm Beach County and Broward County, where most of our clients operate. In Palm Beach County we represent owners and investors in Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Lake Worth, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, and Belle Glade, along with the communities between them.

Across the county line in Broward County, we serve clients in Fort Lauderdale, Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach, Coral Springs, Plantation, Hollywood, Pembroke Pines, Sunrise, and the surrounding areas. Disputes in these counties are heard in the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Judicial Circuits respectively, and in the Southern District of Florida when federal jurisdiction applies.

We also represent clients who live in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut but own a business, investment property, or a share of real estate in South Florida. Whether the matter is a business divorce, a contract fight, or a partition action, we handle the Florida proceedings so those clients can protect their interests from home.

Talk With a Florida Business Law Attorney Today

If a partner, co-owner, or counterparty has put your company, your investment, or your property at risk, a conversation with a Florida business law attorney at the Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team can clarify your deadlines, your options, and the realistic cost of each path. Andrew Schwartz and Sundeep Nath bring decades of combined litigation experience to disputes across South Florida.

Call to schedule a consultation. We answer the phone, and if we are in court, you will hear back within 24 hours.