INDUSTRY FOCUS
Employment counsel for professional services firms at the point of growth.
Accounting, engineering, architecture, consulting, marketing, insurance, and commercial real-estate firms need employment practices that protect confidential information, leadership decisions, and client relationships.
Employer-side counsel for business leaders. Licensed counsel in Texas, Colorado, North Carolina, and Wyoming.
DESIGNED FOR
Accounting, technical, and financial firms
Accounting, engineering, architecture, insurance, financial-management, and specialized advisory firms.
Consulting, marketing, and creative firms
Consulting, marketing, advertising, design, and other client-service organizations.
Commercial real estate and growing firms
Commercial real-estate firms and founder-led professional employers adding people, partners, managers, services, or locations.
SELECTED RECOGNITION AND PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
*Recognition and affiliations identify professional standing and do not guarantee any result.
BUILT FOR EMPLOYER DECISIONS
Employment support for professional firms managing growth, leadership, and client relationships.
Treaty Oak advises professional services employers on HR infrastructure, confidential information, restrictive covenants, employee and leadership disputes, workplace investigations, and employment decisions that can affect client relationships.
Confidential information and client relationships
Employees may have access to sensitive client information and relationships that require careful hiring, management, and transition practices.
Growth is creating new employment issues
The first formal complaint, leave issue, difficult termination, or employee in another state changes the risk profile.
Managers need structure
Technical excellence does not always include experience with supervision, documentation, feedback, or difficult employee conversations.
Natalie Lynch, Esq.
Treaty Oak Employers’ Law Group
EXPERIENCED COUNSEL. HUMAN JUDGMENT.
Employment counsel for professional firms and client-facing workplaces.
Treaty Oak helps professional firms address employment agreements, confidentiality, restrictive covenants, performance and conduct issues, executive or partner-related workplace disputes, investigations, and difficult employee transitions.
Our clients employ humans™. That is the whole of it, and it is harder than it sounds.
FIRM PHILOSOPHY
WHERE RISK TENDS TO SURFACE
Professional firms face employment risk where people and client relationships overlap.
Confidential information, restrictive covenants, partner or executive authority, employee departures, and client relationships can complicate an otherwise ordinary performance, conduct, or separation decision.
HR infrastructure gaps
Policies, offers, classifications, reviews, and discipline may vary by partner or department.
Executive and partner workplace disputes
Authority, compensation, client ownership, reporting lines, and employee loyalties can turn a leadership dispute into a workplace issue.
Employee departures and restrictive covenants
A departure may raise questions about notice, confidentiality, solicitation, competition, client contact, and the enforceability of existing agreements.
New compliance thresholds
Headcount, benefits, leave, and multi-state work can introduce obligations the firm did not face earlier.
HOW TREATY OAK HELPS
Employment support matched to the firm and its client-facing work.
Treaty Oak helps professional firms build practical employment systems, protect confidential information and client relationships, investigate complaints, and address leadership or employee disputes.
HR infrastructure
Practical foundations for hiring, performance, discipline, complaints, leave, and separations.
Employee handbooks
Policies matched to the firm's size, management model, work locations, and client-facing reality.
Employment agreements and restrictive covenants
Review of employment agreements, confidentiality terms, and restrictive covenants with attention to applicable state law and client relationships.
Workplace investigations
Outside neutrality for sensitive complaints, credibility disputes, or matters involving leadership.
Executive and partner workplace issues
Employment counseling for conduct, reporting-line, performance, and separation issues involving executives, partners, or other firm leaders.
Compliance and training
Focused review and manager training as the firm crosses new headcount, role, or location thresholds.
A USEFUL TIME TO CALL
Call when an employment issue may affect leadership, confidential information, or a client relationship.
Early employment advice can help the firm review agreements, preserve relevant records, define decision-making responsibility, and plan communications before positions or client relationships are disrupted.
- The firm is growing beyond informal people practices or adding its first management layer.
- A first formal complaint, agency notice, leave issue, or difficult termination has surfaced.
- Managers are handling performance and discipline differently.
- Employees are working in new states or under hybrid arrangements.
- Leadership wants an employment foundation that will support the next stage of growth.
QUESTIONS EMPLOYERS ASK
Before you schedule a conversation
Are we too small to need employment counsel?
Not necessarily. A growing firm often benefits most when the first policies and manager practices can still be built before a dispute hardens them.
Do you provide ongoing support or only projects?
Both are possible. The scope can be a handbook or investigation, a specific employee decision, or recurring employment counseling.
Can you work with our existing HR consultant or PEO?
Yes. Treaty Oak can define the legal role and coordinate with the firm’s existing operational support.
Can you help when an owner is also an employee?
Yes. Treaty Oak can address the employment aspects of workplace conduct, leadership duties, or separation involving an owner-employee. Ownership, governance, or buyout issues may require a coordinated business-law scope.
EMPLOYER-SIDE CONSULTATION
Get employer-side counsel for a professional-firm workplace issue.
Tell us which firm is involved, who is involved, and whether the immediate issue concerns confidential information, a restrictive covenant, an executive or partner, a client relationship, a complaint, an investigation, or another employment decision.
- Treaty Oak represents employers and organizational decision-makers; the firm does not represent employees.
- Include the names of the organization and people involved so the firm can check conflicts.
- Share only a concise description; substantive legal advice begins after engagement.
Request a focused consultation
For employer and organization decision-makers. Treaty Oak represents employers and does not represent employees.
Provide the organization, the names of the people or entities involved, relevant work locations, and a concise description so the firm can check conflicts and determine fit.
Submitting this form does not create an attorney-client relationship. Names are requested for conflict review; do not include confidential or privileged details in the description.