Legal advice for dentists

Support for your dental practice

Our dental practice legal specialists are drawn from all areas of our commercial teams to provide expert advice; helping our clients make sure their practice is compliant and functioning efficiently so they can concentrate on what matters to them. Our wealth of experience in this area means you know your practice is in safe hands.

The advice we can offer to dental practices includes the following:

• Incorporation and shareholder agreements
  You may be considering incorporation to help you safeguard your personal assets, achieve tax savings and get easier access to growth financing. We can help you get the structure right and draft clear shareholder agreements that protect your personal and business interests.
• Structuring your practice
  Our corporate team are experienced in making sure their dental clients reduce their liability through comprehensive partnership agreements and arrangements.
• Expense sharing agreements
  An expense sharing agreement is a common way for a dental practice to operate. This allows you to share expenses (staff, dental equipment and rent), but not the fees that you personally earn at the practice. We can help you put an expense sharing agreement in place which would protect everyone’s interest and take care of difficult situations such as a partner’s prolonged absence or partner disputes.
• Buying or selling your practice
  Buying and selling a dental practice is quite different from buying and selling other types of business. Our team have a wealth of experience in drafting bespoke sale and purchase agreements to suit your particular circumstances. We will cover all areas including uncompleted treatments, restrictive covenants to stop the seller from setting up a rival practice, contacting patients and poaching staff, TUPE considerations, property matters as well as warranties and indemnities.
• Contracts for hygienists and other support staff
  As in any business, it is vital that your working relationships with hygienists, therapists and other support staff are formalised in a written agreement. Our experienced employment lawyers can make sure such agreements are in place which would make everyone aware of their rights and responsibilities, set out how any disputes would be settled and spell out an exit strategy.
• Property ownership and development
  It’s not just the location of your practice that’s vital to its success. The property and the method you use to occupy it are just as important. Our commercial property team advise on property purchases, sales, leases and development to make sure your building always suits your dental practices needs.
• Associate agreements
  It is very common for dentists to work as self-employed associates in a practice. The associate normally makes regular payments to the practice in return for the use of the practice premises, staff, materials and equipment.When you invite associates into your practice, based on a verbal agreement only, you may face issues such as employment status, handling any under-performance or substandard work, agreeing the ownership of goodwill and deciding what happens when the associate leaves the practice.Our corporate team can help you make sure your working relationships with associates are governed by comprehensive agreements which spell out the parties’ obligations and responsibilities, restrictive covenants and terms of exiting the practice.