Bennett Guthrie associate Rebekah Morrison lays out the reasons why legal counsel is essential to business, from bankruptcy to defending against predatory loans, to handling lingering COVID debt to employee theft to estate planning – and why the best clients get the best outcomes by coming in before they think they need to, and telling their lawyer everything.
For Rebekah Morrison, an associate attorney at Bennett Guthrie, every day at work is a reminder of why she’s there.
She said she wanted to become a lawyer because it combines a number of things she loves. Reading and writing. Collaborating with others to get work done.
And arguing.
“My mom said I would argue with a sign post,” she said. “I would disagree with that.”
Morrison, a native of Madison, NC, is a graduate, both bachelor’s and law school, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Her first jobs as a lawyer were stints at several family law firms in the Piedmont Triad.
The firms were a good fit. The practice of family law, however, wasn’t.
“That was stressful, the stakes are high and there is more of a zero-sum game,” she said.
Morrison said the areas of law in which she now practices – civil litigation, employment issues, workers compensation, appellate practice, insurance coverage and bankruptcy – allow her to use both her curiosity and her imagination.
And her patience.
In a heavily contested bankruptcy, for example, Morrison said that a good litigator will have a different effect on the proceedings. Instead of beating the other side into submission, an experienced bankruptcy lawyer will more likely take the opposite approach.
“A litigator can really bring down the temperature in a highly contentious case,” said Morrison. “It can lead the parties to self-litigate, instead of spending a ton of money. The idea is to keep the business viable and not leave them broke. The point is to leave everybody standing in business litigation, to help the business get back to where they were.”
Of particular concern to business defense attorneys are predatory merchant tax advances, which sometimes come to businesses on the promise of purchasing receivables, but are in fact short-term loans with extremely high interest rates.
To complicate it further, many companies are from out of state, which makes it more difficult; and within North Carolina, the law itself makes it difficult to defend against that kind of debt.
Morrison says that Bennett Guthrie works to find ways for businesses to defend themselves, which sometimes means a combination of a civil suit and subsequent bankruptcy.
Another concern just now is the lingering effects that Covid has had on business, especially the debt that it left behind.
“You can close the business and pay all creditors,” said Morrison. “You can restructure and seek bankruptcy protection and ask the court to help discharge leftover debt. Or you can apply for a receivership which occurs in state court. A receiver looks at who has what claims. The receiver can look over and re-shape how a business operates – they can also take over the running of the business.”
In choosing one path over the other: “You really have to use what you’ve got – because it is so easy for things to go sideways.”
One common problem that businesses (individuals) face is employee theft.
“Have a CPA look at it immediately,” said Morrison. “Put a freeze on your accounts. Forensic accountants work well. Take an image of all of your accounts. If you think this has happened to you, you have got to find out immediately.”
Obviously, it’s better to know ahead of time.
“You need to have regular audits, better, you need random audits,” said Morrison. “Something may be irregular and it may not be fraud but it still needs to be caught and corrected.”
Within estates, go DIY?
Nope. Morrison says planning how you want your estate to be handled beforehand is crucial and cost-effective for your loved ones – and executors who call in lawyers have the advantage of having someone on the ground who has experience in dealing with a particular clerk’s office.
“Everything gets done, everything gets inventoried,” she said. “If you do it wrong, then woe unto you. You have to serve everyone appropriately; you have to handle issues that other heirs might have – which could be legitimate or could be emotional. It’s similar to family law – emotionally charged but dealing with funds. It helps when someone can simplify things: creditors get paid and liens get addressed.”
Morrison said that many business clients who are in trouble tend to wait to come in for help.
“They’ve been in trouble for a while, they’ve made it work by borrowing from predatory lenders, or they’ve tried to dig-out but can’t quite get out ahead,” she said. “It really really does give you more options to just come in to BG, and talk about things that may be happening with your business. It is okay if you don’t have a game plan or a full idea/picture of where you go from here, you just know that your business is stressed and you need some advice. This firm can really help clients that are in that space.”
Morrison takes a common-sense approach to the law. In business law generally and in family law, if you do get sued, go meet with your lawyer – and be prepared to, well, tell it all.
“Clients sometimes don’t realize that I cannot testify for them,” she said. “They have to be able to communicate what happened and why in a succinct way, and let the Court know their side of the story. I can help them present it, but they have to be able to say their side and answer questions about what all happened.
“The key to defending a lawsuit is good communication and access to the documents that you need. You need to have an open discussion. You need to get questions answered. Court is not the place to have a fact-finding conversation. And discovery is not the place to have it. With your client, you can get the best sense of the case, who the players are and what went down. You need that and need it at the beginning. Otherwise, you may have to change course.”
She said she wanted to become a lawyer because it combines a number of things she loves. Reading and writing. Collaborating with others to get work done.
And arguing.
“My mom said I would argue with a sign post,” she said. “I would disagree with that.”
Morrison, a native of Madison, NC, is a graduate, both bachelor’s and law school, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Her first jobs as a lawyer were stints at several family law firms in the Piedmont Triad.
The firms were a good fit. The practice of family law, however, wasn’t.
“That was stressful, the stakes are high and there is more of a zero-sum game,” she said.
Morrison said the areas of law in which she now practices – civil litigation, employment issues, workers compensation, appellate practice, insurance coverage and bankruptcy – allow her to use both her curiosity and her imagination.
And her patience.
In a heavily contested bankruptcy, for example, Morrison said that a good litigator will have a different effect on the proceedings. Instead of beating the other side into submission, an experienced bankruptcy lawyer will more likely take the opposite approach.
“A litigator can really bring down the temperature in a highly contentious case,” said Morrison. “It can lead the parties to self-litigate, instead of spending a ton of money. The idea is to keep the business viable and not leave them broke. The point is to leave everybody standing in business litigation, to help the business get back to where they were.”
Of particular concern to business defense attorneys are predatory merchant tax advances, which sometimes come to businesses on the promise of purchasing receivables, but are in fact short-term loans with extremely high interest rates.
To complicate it further, many companies are from out of state, which makes it more difficult; and within North Carolina, the law itself makes it difficult to defend against that kind of debt.
Morrison says that Bennett Guthrie works to find ways for businesses to defend themselves, which sometimes means a combination of a civil suit and subsequent bankruptcy.
Another concern just now is the lingering effects that Covid has had on business, especially the debt that it left behind.
“You can close the business and pay all creditors,” said Morrison. “You can restructure and seek bankruptcy protection and ask the court to help discharge leftover debt. Or you can apply for a receivership which occurs in state court. A receiver looks at who has what claims. The receiver can look over and re-shape how a business operates – they can also take over the running of the business.”
In choosing one path over the other: “You really have to use what you’ve got – because it is so easy for things to go sideways.”
One common problem that businesses (individuals) face is employee theft.
“Have a CPA look at it immediately,” said Morrison. “Put a freeze on your accounts. Forensic accountants work well. Take an image of all of your accounts. If you think this has happened to you, you have got to find out immediately.”
Obviously, it’s better to know ahead of time.
“You need to have regular audits, better, you need random audits,” said Morrison. “Something may be irregular and it may not be fraud but it still needs to be caught and corrected.”
Within estates, go DIY?
Nope. Morrison says planning how you want your estate to be handled beforehand is crucial and cost-effective for your loved ones – and executors who call in lawyers have the advantage of having someone on the ground who has experience in dealing with a particular clerk’s office.
“Everything gets done, everything gets inventoried,” she said. “If you do it wrong, then woe unto you. You have to serve everyone appropriately; you have to handle issues that other heirs might have – which could be legitimate or could be emotional. It’s similar to family law – emotionally charged but dealing with funds. It helps when someone can simplify things: creditors get paid and liens get addressed.”
Morrison said that many business clients who are in trouble tend to wait to come in for help.
“They’ve been in trouble for a while, they’ve made it work by borrowing from predatory lenders, or they’ve tried to dig-out but can’t quite get out ahead,” she said. “It really really does give you more options to just come in to BG, and talk about things that may be happening with your business. It is okay if you don’t have a game plan or a full idea/picture of where you go from here, you just know that your business is stressed and you need some advice. This firm can really help clients that are in that space.”
Morrison takes a common-sense approach to the law. In business law generally and in family law, if you do get sued, go meet with your lawyer – and be prepared to, well, tell it all.
“Clients sometimes don’t realize that I cannot testify for them,” she said. “They have to be able to communicate what happened and why in a succinct way, and let the Court know their side of the story. I can help them present it, but they have to be able to say their side and answer questions about what all happened.
“The key to defending a lawsuit is good communication and access to the documents that you need. You need to have an open discussion. You need to get questions answered. Court is not the place to have a fact-finding conversation. And discovery is not the place to have it. With your client, you can get the best sense of the case, who the players are and what went down. You need that and need it at the beginning. Otherwise, you may have to change course.”
