At Capes Sokol, we strive to find the best solutions to our clients’ legal problems and to turn even complex challenges into opportunities.
That’s why each member of our St. Louis-based team is committed to looking at every issue from multiple angles. We bring teamwork and collaboration across disciplines. We take the time to listen and understand our clients' industries, problems and challenges. And then we apply deep legal knowledge, experience and creativity all leading to strategies and execution that just make sense.
Business & Finance
Successful businesses share four common traits: visionary leadership, sound planning, excellent execution and responsive legal counsel. The attorneys in Capes Sokol’s Business and Finance practice help build success by representing individuals, publicly held corporations, large and small businesses and nonprofit organizations.
We serve as a partner to help you navigate the relationships and transactions necessary to start, grow and nurture your business. It starts with uncommon attention to learning our client’s goals and unique situation. We listen to you, your business and legal advisors, and even opposing counsel. Why? Because our experience has shown us that it’s the best way to provide the objective analysis and creative solutions you need to find success.
The lawyers who best understand the value of your intellectual property—whether on the factory floor or in the sound studio—are the lawyers best equipped to represent your interests in the courtroom and at the bargaining table. We are committed to being those lawyers.
That commitment is especially important in the 21st Century. Once upon a time, only a newspaper or a broadcaster needed to be concerned over defamation, invasion of privacy, and rights of publicity. Now every company with a website or a Facebook or Twitter page—and, thus, virtually every company—is a publisher and an advertiser, as is every person with a blog or social media profile. Once upon a time, copyrights were the principal domain of the entertainment industry. Now retailers, banks, and manufacturers have discovered that they, too, own valuable copyrights—indeed, some of our biggest copyright cases have involved disputes within traditional industries that are now hotbeds of copyright litigation. And then there is the field of trademarks. These key company assets—those instantly recognizable symbols of you and your brand that can be worth more than your company’s physical assets—are now even more important and more vulnerable in the Internet Age.
You need the Capes Sokol Intellectual Property practice on your side.
Practice in Action
Capes Sokol’s Employment Law practice attorneys assist companies and employees in all industries with a broad range of workforce issues.
Our experienced attorneys provide preventative counseling; assist with documenting employment issues and business practices; counsel on compliance with federal and state laws; advise on separations and other risk management issues; investigate allegations of workplace misconduct; draft and prepare employee handbooks and other HR policies; and defend employers in administrative agency proceedings, and in litigation in state and federal trial and appellate courts.
Our attorneys represent organizations of all types and sizes, including Fortune 500 companies, publicly owned and privately held businesses, municipalities, educational organizations, health care providers, law firms, and religious and charitable organizations.
In addition to representing a wide range of employers, our attorneys represent executives and other employees in negotiating favorable employment and separation agreements and advise on issues related to non-competition agreements. Our breadth of experience also allows us to counsel such employees on other employment related issues from both legal and practical standpoints.
Our approach is to avoid disputes and litigation through preventive practices, and as a result, we often act as day-to-day business and legal advisors to our clients. This hands-on, preventive approach allows us to assist clients in formulating efficient, long-term workforce management plans and results in reduced legal costs to clients.
In the event of litigation, our attorneys have vast experience representing employers and employees in all stages of the litigation process. Although we strive to resolve disputes quickly and efficiently, we have earned a reputation as aggressive litigators in the courtroom. We have litigated complex, high-profile disputes and understand that a business must be concerned about not only its financial exposure but also its reputation with the public and its employees and customers.
The attorneys in the Capes Sokol Litigation practice use a collaborative, team-oriented approach to managing and resolving a wide-variety of complex disputes in the most cost-effective manner. This approach, combined with a broad range of knowledge and experience, gives us the perspective we need to achieve the best possible results for our clients.
We have successfully represented clients in federal and state courts at both the trial and appellate levels in complex business, real estate, construction, trust, employment, securities, insurance, personal injury, product liability, and property diminution litigation. We regularly handle matters before administrative agencies and arbitration panels. In addition, we negotiate on behalf of clients to achieve resolution pre-litigation, through mediation and other non-judicial methods.
Collaborative by nature, the attorneys in Capes Sokol’s Real Estate practice work with lenders, owners, developers, contractors, buyers, sellers and tenants. We assist clients with real estate sales and acquisition, ownership, development, and financing.
Whether you are an individual, or working on behalf of a lending institution, for-profit or nonprofit organization, our team of seasoned professionals is passionate about helping you make smart, informed decisions that will help you achieve your goals. Our clients have come to trust our swift, objective analysis and clear, compelling advice – advice that leads to award-winning developments known to spark economic growth.
The Capes Sokol Trusts & Estates practice group is committed to providing outstanding client service. We approach our clients’ objectives in a thoughtful and calculated way that transcends institutionalized “one-size-fits-all” estate planning. Our fundamental mission is to help our clients explore and articulate what their wealth is for, and then implement strategies and tools to accomplish these goals. We listen to you, the client, and help you discover what your wealth is for.
Relationships. Each and every day, we work with individuals and families, and we bring the same level of expertise, attention and flexibility to each person, to each branch, and to each generation. Many of our clients are inter-generational families with whom we have worked for decades. This consistency is the result of dedicated and quality work, but also borne of the trust that our relationship with our clients engenders.
Experience matters. To help address the wide range of complex issues our clients face, the Trusts & Estates group works closely with our other practice areas, including the Business & Finance and Real Estate, to provide efficient and practical solutions and advice. This multi-disciplinary approach helps us deliver a comprehensive plan that leverages our experience with a wide variety of investment and planning strategies with other expertise available throughout our firm.
Results. No one will work harder for you than we will. Not only will we help you grow and protect your wealth, but we will also help you use it in ways that bring meaning and joy to your family. Whatever you think your wealth is for, we help you make it happen.
Criminal investigations can be long, complex affairs that are both personally and financially draining. We can minimize the impact of these investigations – and provide honest and objective representation to limit your risk.
We represent individuals and entities with actual or potential white collar criminal exposure. We work collaboratively to ensure we have a complete understanding of the issues from all sides. It’s an approach that delivers the best possible outcomes and has earned us a solid reputation with both prosecutors and judges. And it’s an approach that often results in the resolution of cases without ever having to set foot in a courtroom.
