John is an experienced business lawyer who seeks to provide effective and timely legal advice at reasonable rates. He has more than 40 years of serving a broad spectrum of business clients in a variety of industries in a wide range of general corporate and business transactions. Over the years he has been associated with many successful management teams, some at business organizations that have grown into large national firms.
Sample Experience
As a corporate attorney John has been involved in planning, financing, and operating successful business, handling the formation, organization, and capitalization of start-up business, including corporations, limited partnerships, limited liability companies, and other types of entities, and the financing of those businesses through capital contributions, loans, and private placements, strategic alliances, joint ventures, and mergers and acquisitions, and eventually the buyouts, sales and divestitures of those businesses, and the incidental employment, compensation, equity participation, general corporate and business matters, with attention to tax and securities issues in such transactions. Many clients have owned, developed, and disposed of commercial real estate.
Education
- Wofford College, B.A. 1971 – History
- University of South Carolina, J.D. 1975
Professional Memberships & Awards
- State Bar of Texas
- Association for Corporate Growth. John is a past president of the Houston Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth, an organization focused on mergers and acquisitions and growth through product development. Investment bankers, deal brokers, and other professionals are members of ACG.
- InterServe. John (and his predecessor firm Rhem P.C.) was a founding member of InterServe, an association of professional service providers, most of whom are lawyers, who provide separate, but related, expertise in the areas of corporate, employment, immigration, customs, intellectual property, criminal defense, and other areas of law. Lee & Desenberg, PLLC is a member of InterServe. www.interserveinc.org
- Houston Bar Foundation. John has served on the board of directors and as chairman of the Houston Bar Foundation.
- Houston Bar Association. John served two terms as a director of the Houston Bar Association. In his work for the Houston Bar Association, he served as chairman of the Committee on Law and the Arts, the Committee on Interprofessional Relations with CPA’s, and the Houston Volunteer Lawyers Program. In 1992 he was honored with the Houston Bar Association’s President’s Award. He has been a member of the Business Law Section, the Mergers and Acquisitions Section, and previously served as chairman of the Taxation Section.
- Martindale. The Martindale Hubbell Law Directory gives John the directory’s highest rating, a rating that he has held for more than 30 years.