Top Franchise Legal Players: Joseph A. Brooks, Fisher Zucker LLC

Honoree: Joseph A. Brooks
Role: Associate Attorney, Fisher Zucker 

Joseph A. Brooks, an associate attorney at Fisher Zucker, focuses on business transactions within the franchise context, emphasizing state franchise registration and regulatory compliance. Brooks’ expertise extends to drafting franchise disclosure documents, franchise agreements and related documents tailored to each company’s developing franchise system. He also advises clients on day-to-day legal issues, including default, transfer and termination. Recently, Brooks has expanded his practice to trademark law, advising clients on registering marks, prosecuting applications and maintaining trademark filings.

Before joining Fisher Zucker, Brooks worked as outside counsel for an NFL franchise and represented active and retired professional athletes and front office personnel in civil, criminal, federal and family court. During law school, he was a member of the Moorad Sports Law Journal and worked as a research assistant for Michael Risch, head of the intellectual property law department. Additionally, he served as a law student counselor in the Clinic for Law & Entrepreneurship.

1851 Franchise reached out to Brooks to learn about how franchisors can protect their brand and avoid legal mistakes. Check out his insights below.

1851 Franchise: What do you see as the most important things a franchisor should do to protect their brand?

Joseph A. Brooks: The most important thing a franchisor should do to protect its brand is to protect its intellectual property. This is accomplished by (i) registering and enforcing trademarks, copyrights and patents, (ii) ensuring trade secrets remain a secret and (iii) ensuring the franchisor and its franchisees have their employees and other key personnel execute agreements that bind them to maintain confidentiality, non-disclosure and other covenants.

1851: How important is the information in Item 19?

Brooks: Item 19 is the single most important item in the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD). Item 19 allows a franchisor to disclose the performance of existing outlets as long as the franchisor has a reasonable basis for disclosing such information. Without an Item 19, a franchisor can’t discuss system performance with a prospective franchisee. A well-constructed Item 19 does not only disclose top-line numbers but also provides key performance indicators (KPIs) specific to the applicable industry, such as average ticket, customer retention rates and gross sales by product or service line.

1851: What is the single largest legal mistake brands make?

Brooks: The single largest legal mistake brands make is failing to conduct a comprehensive trademark search before filing for a trademark and franchising their brand. A comprehensive trademark search determines whether a brand name has already been filed for registration or trademarked and is in use by another person or company. Many brands fail to take this step and learn the hard way when they award a territory in a location where the franchisee does not have superior rights to use the trademark.

1851: How do you stand out as a franchise law firm?

Brooks: As a franchise law firm, Fisher Zucker stands out because the firm offers a full array of legal services, including FDD drafting and registration, trademark registration and enforcement, dispute resolution and other business transactions.

1851: What is the best business advice you have received in your career?

Brooks: The best business advice that I ever received was that business ideas alone are worth very little. If you want to start a meaningful business, then you must surround yourself with a team that will allow you to execute that idea at the highest level.

Every great franchisee had help buying a franchise. Want to learn more about how 1851 helps franchisees find the right franchise opportunity? Visit www.1851growthclub.com and start your journey.