Veterinary Practice Purchase Agreement

Whether you are a buyer or a seller, it is important to have a written, enforceable contract in place for the acquisition or sale of your veterinary practice. However, the veterinary industry is a unique and complicated profession. There are numerous areas in which a veterinarian must be protected, but you may not find those “protections” in a standard form business purchase agreement. Wood and Delgado has been the leader for the past three decades in the development, implementation, and perfection of medical practice purchase agreements. Wood and Delgado has crafted what has become the standard for the industry and has tackled many of the most important issues in the sale or acquisition of veterinary practices for over three decades. Restrictive covenants, uncompleted veterinary work, redo work, transition time periods, referral sources, medical and insurance plan issues, accounts receivable collection, as well as many other issues unique to the veterinary industry, have been drafted and constantly revised to reflect changes in state and federal law.

While we have helped thousands of professionals sell or acquire their medical practices, every transition is unique and requires personal, hands-on review and understanding for each individual client. Our firm was founded upon such principles and this continues to be our goal as we enter into our fourth decade representing veterinarians in the sale or acquisition of their veterinary practices.

Veterinary Medical Board Defense

If you are a veterinarian being investigated by the Veterinary Medical Board, you need attorneys familiar with handling the complex issues that may arise during the initial investigation, negotiations with Board investigators, and if charges are actually brought against you. Experience has shown that by hiring an attorney familiar with the investigators and prosecutors, it is often possible to negotiate a favorable settlement without going to a formal hearing. We even have a member of our staff with experience in the Attorney General’s office prosecuting veterinary Board matters, and these experiences are invaluable in providing the best representation for a veterinarian facing Board action.

Partnership Agreements

Our philosophy is simple: Keep the doors of communication open between partners. As a result, our partnership agreements focus on putting every potential conflict down on paper so that walls are not built up between the partners of the veterinary practice(s). We have found during our three decades of representing veterinarians that partnerships are like marriage and must be treated like one. They require constant work, communication, and openness to survive. Some of our most successful and happiest clients are involved in partnerships; however, most of the litigation brought to our law firm is a result of partnerships not having a written, comprehensive partnership agreement in place. As a result, as time goes by, anger, frustration and, ultimately a desire for revenge begin to consume the partner(s) of the partnership.

Our representation goes well beyond the formation, drafting and finalization of the partnership agreement in that our representation focuses on the unique individual members of the partnership and meeting with all the interested parties to develop a common set of goals, beliefs, and desires in attempting to create a partnership that is as unique as the individuals themselves. Some of the important areas that our partnership agreements cover are:

• Buy-sell rights;
• Disability – what happens in the event of a partners disability;
• Death – what happens in the event of a partners death. How do we protect the estate of the deceased veterinarian and how do we protect the surviving veterinarian from financial hardship?
• Compensation scenarios – unequal production numbers, unequal treatment days, cost control for procedures, etc.
• Majority/minority rights;
• Financing issues;
• Proper entity formation for the partnership; And
• Competing individual shareholder veterinary practices – how to protect the veterinary practice from the individual partners competing business interests