Polaris Law Group provides a host of business and estate
services
The demand for business-law expertise is constant. In bustling
economies lawyers are busy helping companies expand, purchase real
estate, negotiate leases and even explore international markets. In
slow times there are debtor-creditor disputes, real estate sales
and lease renegotiations.
Polaris Law Group provides a host of business and estate services
The demand for business-law expertise is constant. In bustling economies lawyers are busy helping companies expand, purchase real estate, negotiate leases and even explore international markets. In slow times there are debtor-creditor disputes, real estate sales and lease renegotiations.
Helping businesses navigate those ups and downs is the vision Gary Clifford and Bill Marder have for their new law firm that recently moved into the refurbished Elk’s Lodge building at the corner of San Benito and Fifth streets in Hollister.
Polaris Law Group LLP, appropriately named after the North Star – a constant fixture in the night sky that has served seafaring vessels as a navigation point since man took to the sea – will practice a broad spectrum of business law. Clifford has practiced in the arenas of real estate development, corporate law and estate planning, while Marder’s experience has focused on employment and government law.
As one of the first homegrown firms emerging in Hollister in recent memory, Polaris’ launch comes at a challenging time for Hollister business. The state-imposed moratorium on new sewer hookups has put the kibosh on many business expansions and new business construction.
“When I first arrived in Hollister in 1996, it was a boom time for business,” Clifford said. “But with the sewer problems, there has been a climate of business contraction.”
The result has been an up-tick in debtor-creditor disputes that began rearing its head about eight months ago, Clifford said. But for business attorneys, it means a shift in the types of cases, not a slowing of business.
“There are always problems to be solved,” he said. “Traditionally people have gone outside Hollister for legal help. People told me I’d starve here, but it’s not true.”
One of the diamonds in the rough in San Benito County, Clifford noted, is the internationally known seed industry in the San Juan Valley. He has a friend in Colombia who would like to own a seed company here, an expansion that Clifford is particularly well suited to advise. Prior to joining the Hollister law firm of Paxton O’Brien Law Group LLP – Clifford and Marder both hail from Paxton O’Brien – Clifford practiced in Japan (including Gilroy’s sister city of Takko Machi), Thailand and Ecuador (he is fluent in Spanish, Japanese and has a working knowledge of Portuguese).
He sees potential in the region’s agriculture industry delving into international markets, since “food is an international commodity.” Many of the existing seed companies in the region are foreign owned, and provide for one of the highest rates of intellectual property filings of any industry.
Of course living in working in a Third-World country such as Ecuador has its drawbacks, not the least of which is having to dress in a suit and carry a briefcase in cities rife with crime, as he found out in Ecuador where he was working with some American companies that were bidding on petroleum fields.
He was jumped, stabbed, sprayed in the eyes with pepper gas and robbed all in one particularly violent assault. Fearing infection if he was treated for a knife wound to his hip at a local hospitals, Clifford made do with a butterfly bandage and a lot of pressure.
Not being familiar with the reaction of pepper gas and water, he jumped into a shower to clear it out of his eyes and learned the hard way when his entire body began to burn. It was then he began to long for a quiet practice in a place like Hollister.
