William Sentell focuses his practice on franchise dispute resolution and related corporate, regulatory, and compliance matters. His combination of litigation and transactional experience allows him to provide holistic legal representation to brand owners, distributors, licensors, manufacturers and other franchise stakeholders.
Dispute Resolution Experience
With more than a decade of complex commercial litigation experience, including first- and second-chair trial and arbitration experience, William provides support and clear risk assessment in all phases of litigation and/or arbitration. Avoiding risk in the area of franchise sales, and managing relationships throughout the franchise lifecycle, are a practice focus for William. Drawing on his broad knowledge of franchising and other related business forms, he has successfully resolved a number of issues and challenges, including matters related to:
- Inadequate disclosure
- Pre-sale fraud and misrepresentation
- Professional negligence and breach of contract
- Enforcement of trade secrets, trademarks and restrictive covenants
- Inadvertent franchising
- Violations of state and federal franchise statutes and regulations
- Item 19 financial performance representations
- Improper/early termination
- Insurance and indemnity
- Joint employer, officer and vicarious liability
Transactional and Regulatory Experience
William routinely draws on his deep litigation experience to provide practical, timely and broad-based representation. In addition to helping clients anticipate and avoid costly disputes, he has advised on a number of other transactional and regulatory matters, including the following:
- Advised with respect to multiple franchise M&A matters, including development of templates, processes and procedures to proactively manage franchise due diligence.
- Counseled established and emerging brand owners with respect to structuring and maintaining national franchise, distribution and licensing programs, including assessing the applicability of state and federal franchise exemptions.
- Drafted and revised franchise disclosure documents, domestic and international franchise agreements, and development arrangement.
- Provided ongoing advice related to state-by-state relationship laws and disclosure prohibitions.
- Identified potential disclosure and relationship violations and minimized future risk based on litigation experience.
Thought Leadership
William speaks regularly about issues affecting the franchise community, including before the American Bar Association, International Franchise Association, the Louisiana State Bar Association, and at Tulane University and the University of New Orleans. His written work has appeared in the Franchise Law Journal, The Franchise Lawyer, Franchising World, Modern Restaurant Management, Franchising.com, and Law Week Colorado, among other publications. He recently contributed to the ABA's best-selling Franchise Deskbook (3d ed.), and he is a member of the ABA Franchise Forum's Publications Committee.