Expertise
Business Litigation
David Erikson has handled a wide variety of business litigation cases, including those in the area of Real Estate Law, Employment Law, Insurance Law, Financial Services and Securities Law – some of which have gone to trial. We guide cases from start to finish, with a scholar’s knowledge of law and procedure. We remain ready to take a case to trial, a stance that guarantees that if we do settle, it will be on the best terms possible.
New Ventures
We love to get involved in new businesses as they are just getting off the ground, especially creative ones. It’s a tremendously exciting time.
But while a new a venture is exciting, there’s a lot to think about, including legal issues. There’s the contractual relationship between the partners, the choice of business entity, investors, and the thicket of compliance issues particular to various industries.
David Erikson has become something of an expert in apparel “knockoff” law. That’s when one fashion designer, usually a corporate one, brazenly copies another. The designer that is stolen from is usually a small one, whose creativity and intellectual property is his or her or its greatest asset. When the bad guys take images from the runway and get their copies in stores before the designer does, that hurts.
When we say we do arts law, we mean that we represent many artists and creative types (like fine artists, photographers, architects, and fashion, interior and furniture designers) in the various transactions and disputes typical to their work. Artists like to deal with us because we understand the creative process and especially creative businesses; and because we speak that language.
We deal with a number of emerging and evolving legal issues related to cyberspace and the world wide web. In keeping with our general approach of getting close to our clients and sticking with them (and having them stick with us), we gain that knowledge. We play with the alpha or beta version of a site and imagine how end users might use or abuse it.
Trademark law protects your brand, by preventing others from using your name, logo and anything else that suggests your company as the source of a product or service. The main idea is to protect the public from confusion, which might lead them to buy an imitation because it appeared to be the real thing.
Transactions is the art of doing deals—and putting them down on paper in a contract. This is part of what every lawyer does. But different lawyers do it differently.
Our philosophy, when it comes to contracts, stems from our general view of working with clients. We get to know them and understand their business, allowing us to help them develop and articulate their goals, and anticipate problems.