Teanna Neskora’s practice centers on commercial transactions and corporate counseling. She serves as general outside counsel to a number of companies whom she regularly advises on a wide range of business issues, including acquisitions and divestitures, employment and compensation matters, general operating matters and contract issues. Teanna drafts, reviews and negotiates contracts on a routine basis, advises clients on business and expansion plans, including project development, and counsels clients on employment, consulting and joint venture agreements. She has advised clients on a variety of corporate transactions, including mergers, asset purchases and stock purchases, on both the buyer side and the seller side. She has counseled clients on corporate restructuring and has assisted clients in equity and debt finance transactions, including private offerings, venture capital financing and project finance deals. 

Teanna is experienced in negotiating and drafting employment, consulting and non-compete agreements and she has assisted clients in designing and documenting a broad array of incentive compensation plans including stock option plans, phantom stock plans, stock bonus plans, stock appreciation rights, severance plans, supplemental executive retirement plans and other deferred compensation arrangements. Teanna has negotiated commercial real estate leases, including leases for office space in multi-tenant office buildings, medical clinics, a rehabilitation hospital and industrial properties, and she has represented both buyers and sellers in real estate transactions, including the sale of an office building, a warehouse and other commercial properties. Teanna regularly assists clients with many other types of contracts and matters including partnership agreements, LLC operating agreements, supply agreements, service agreements, distributor agreements, equipment leases, and licensing agreements. She has also represented corporate clients in disputes with shareholders and she advises management on shareholder and employee matters.

Teanna has experience representing trust departments of financial institutions and trust companies in transactional and litigation matters. She routinely advises bank trust departments and trust companies on trust management and administration issues, including interpretation of fiduciary instruments and assessment of fiduciary obligations, and she represents banks in their capacity as executor of wills on probate matters and in administration of estates. She has represented banks in their capacity as trustee in breach of fiduciary duty claims, in securities litigation and in compliance matters.     

Business succession planning is a significant part of Teanna’s practice. Teanna has assisted the owners of many closely held businesses in planning for the transmission of the business at the death or retirement of the owner through the use of buy/sell agreements, options and other methods. 

Also as part of her trusts and estates practice, Teanna advises clients on estate planning strategies for the transmission and preservation of wealth. She implements clients' estate plans through the use of various types of trusts, family limited partnerships, wills with marital and credit shelter trusts, living wills and other estate planning vehicles, and she assists clients in integrating their life insurance policies, IRAs and other retirement plans into their overall estate plans.  Teanna also advises the executors of wills, assisting them through the entire estate administration process beginning with the probate of the will to the management of estate property through the final distribution of the estate assets to the heirs, and she has experience in preparing federal estate and gift tax returns. Teanna has represented executors, trustees and heirs in will and trust disputes.     

Teanna earned her J.D. from LSU Law School where she was a member of the Louisiana Law Review and served as Managing Editor from 1992-1993. Upon graduation she was inducted into the Order of the Coif and clerked for the Honorable James L. Dennis, then Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Representative Matters:

• Represented buyer in purchase of $101 million chemical plant (2011)
• Represented sellers in a $7.5 million sale of assets of an oilfield compression company (2011)
• Represented borrower in $145 million credit facility (2011)
• Represented community bank holding company in merger (valued at approximately $140 million) with regional bank holding company (2011)
• Represented buyers of long-standing downtown Houston restaurant with five locations (2010)
• Represented seller in $29 million sale of assets of utilities services company (2010)
• Represented client with an interest in the borrower under a defaulted loan in complex workout negotiations resulting in transfer to borrower of ownership of 90 mile pipeline
• Represented project development company in negotiating letters of intent and term sheets for numerous prospective projects (2010-2012)

Professional Affiliations:

• American Bar Association - Business Law and Trusts and Estates Sections
• State Bar of Texas
• Louisiana State Bar Association

Honors:

• AV Rated by Martindale-Hubbell