Your business built the family’s wealth. Protect what happens when ownership changes.

Roots & Wings Legal builds the legal architecture and governance operating system for business-owning families, and leads the legal execution of sales, acquisitions, successions, and ownership transitions.

Words from our clients

“Yuki and the team at Roots and Wings Legal were instrumental in helping us successfully complete the management buyout and ownership transition of our company. … When we encountered roadblocks, she offered creative alternatives that kept the transaction moving forward. I truly believe the acquisition may not have been completed without her guidance and involvement.”
— Tony Selko, Partner at Backen & Backen
"Yuki Ku has been a trusted and respected attorney for our company since the start… I can’t count the number of times that Yuki had saved our company from making a poor decision in the organization structure and strategy."
— Eric Bunnell, Co-Founder, Unifyed
“At every step of the process, she was extremely professional and helpful in moving the deal forward… She was able to negotiate some arcane legal deal points in our favor… In the end, the whole deal went far more smoothly because she was on our side.”
— Matt Christiano, Founder/CEO, Reprise Software
“I’ve worked with Yuki across a number of deals and she has been an excellent partner… She has been pragmatic in her approach to solving difficult problems and always provides thoughtful advice in complex situations.”
— Rich Scudellari, Founding Partner, Penny Jar Capital

“How do I prepare my business and my family to sustain this success across generations?”

You’ve built something remarkable.

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A thriving enterprise that carries your family’s name, values, and hard work.

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Now, you want to steward your wealth and business so your impact outlives you.

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Most business owners start preparing too late or when a crisis compels them to.

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You’re not like most business owners. You’re already thinking ahead.

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The challenge is a lot of this work happens in private. It’s confidential behind-the-scenes work
that you can’t quite learn from the outside.

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So, you need someone who has seen it before to help you figure things out like:

  • How to prepare your kids to lead this business well
  • What pitfalls, implications, and risks to mitigate proactively
  • How to keep growing while building the foundation for what comes next

We guide business families to prepare for multigenerational growth. We’ll help you build the
foundation for the next chapter.

Helping businesses and their owners since 2012.

BigLaw M&A

M&A and corporate practice at K&L Gates and Covington & Burling.

Law Firm Leadership

Partner at Presidio Legal.

In-House Leadership

Head of Legal for a Series E technology company recognized as a TIME100 Most Influential Company.

That experience shapes the firm's work today: leading the legal execution of M&A, partner and shareholder buyouts, ownership restructurings, succession, and the governance work that has to hold up once a transition is underway.

How We Help

Two ways we help business families
move forward.

When the path is clear, we lead the legal work.
When it is not, we help the owners determine the path first.

Enterprise Counsel

Legal counsel and implementation for succession, ownership transitions, M&A, governance, buyouts, and other significant business changes.

Family Business Advisory

Upstream advisory work to align owners, clarify the path forward, and work through family, ownership, and governance questions before legal implementation.

Representative matters

Selected legal work for family business succession and ownership transitions.

Selected examples of how Roots & Wings Legal connects family alignment, ownership strategy, governance, and legal implementation.

Selected engagementsEnterprise Counsel
$80M business familyIntegrated engagement

One family. Five connected legal strategies.

Family alignment, business recapitalization, a 10% gift of closely held business interests, connected family and business governance, and an intrafamily lending framework.

01 Align02 Structure03 Implement04 Govern05 Continue
Buy-side M&ABusiness + real estate

Acquisition supporting a family enterprise’s growth strategy

Ownership transition$30M enterprise

Stewardship ownership beyond automatic inheritance

Foundation succession$14M foundation

Governance transition from the second generation to the third

A business law firm built for ownership transitions that are also family transitions.

We understand that your goals go beyond just the deal terms. You care about the ownership structure, the leadership transition, and how decisions will impact the people involved.

We bring strategic, legal, and relational perspectives to every engagement — so your enterprise’s mission continues and your family relationships are strengthened.

This integrated model is led by your Enterprise Counsel, an ongoing legal partner who coordinates legal architecture, governance, transactions, advisors, and family decision-making across the life of the enterprise.