Our experienced franchising lawyers have a 360-degree view of the global franchising industry. We have decades of experience advising franchisors and master franchisees across a variety of industries. By leveraging our global platform, our legal team delivers a full range of services to companies doing business around the world.
Our representation of franchisors ranges from emerging systems to some of the largest franchisors in the world. We understand the issues and challenges that each of these franchise systems face. Clients recognize that we understand their business, have in-depth knowledge, and maintain an ability to provide counsel in major markets around the world where our clients conduct business.
Our legal service platform caters to every aspect of franchised businesses. We possess significant experience in all legal disciplines in which our franchise clients operate, including litigation and arbitration, compliance, corporate governance, and information security and data privacy. Our lawyers also provide counsel on commercial contracts, restructuring and insolvency, employment law, government relations, mergers and acquisitions, and public company operations. We have substantial experience with franchise disclosure documents, franchise agreements, franchise registration laws, franchise relationship laws, and global distribution platforms, including a franchising team that has been established in Australia for the past three decades.
Members of our Franchising team are frequent authors and speakers at top hospitality and franchise industry events hosted by the International Franchise Association, American Bar Association Forum on Franchising, and the American Hotel and Lodging Association, as well as numerous bar association, corporate counsel, and trade organization groups.
We have substantial experience handling a broad spectrum of matters related to franchising, including:
Commercial, cross-border, and international transactions
Cybersecurity, data protection, and data privacy
Intellectual property
Corporate matters
Mergers and acquisition
Commercial litigation
Real estate
Insurance recovery and counseling
Restructuring and insolvency
Employment law
Financial services
Government relations
Advertising, marketing, sweepstakes, and promotions
This edition of The Essentials coincides with the close of California’s 2025 legislative session and summarizes the most significant employment-related bills enacted this year. We have highlighted key provisions of the new laws taking effect in 2026 and one related to the use of artificial intelligence that took effect in October 2025.
Since returning to office in January 2025, President Trump has made broad assertions of executive authority, including the power to fire independent agency heads at will. For almost a century, these officials have been protected by law from such “without cause” removals, enjoying insulation from direct presidential control. That status quo—rooted in the Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States—is on the verge of transformation.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act makes major changes to the Internal Revenue Code’s clean energy tax provisions, particularly to the provisions that were extended, expanded, and established as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
In many ways, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC or Commission) Fiscal Year 2026 Examination Priorities (Priorities), published on 17 November 2025 by the Division of Examinations, track the priorities of prior years, making clear that the Commission remains focused, as ever, on monitoring for risks to the investing public.
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