You have invested so much of yourself into it, you are reluctant to see it go. But despite all the time, effort thought and emotion, it just is not working. You’ve put in more than you’ve gotten out. You’ve wasted one too many nights analyzing what went wrong. Finally, you decide, I will end it. I will just say goodbye, take what’s mine, and make a clean break. But when you sit down to have that conversation, you realize that you are ill-prepared.
Lest you think I have suddenly become a divorce attorney discussing relationships, fear not, I am actually talking about the dissolution of a business. People don’t often think of business attorneys as being adept at handling charged emotional scenes. Ironically though, corporate attorneys often find ourselves caught in the middle of high drama. Closely held businesses, especially those which were casually thrown together instead of carefully planned, can sometimes be as hard to dissolve as the worst marriage. I wish I could share some anecdotes of nasty fights over the assets and disposition of a business, but I do abide by the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct, which prevent me from disclosing even the identity of my clients without their permission, so the rest I will leave to your imagination.
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