Practice

The work follows ownership.

Six areas, one client: the person who owns the enterprise, the estate, or the problem.

• Startups & TechnologySoftware & AI, biotech, longevity, robotics, energy storage
• Investors & Corporate FinanceInvestor-side representation, credit facilities, restructuring
• International CompaniesU.S. counsel for foreign-owned companies and principals
• Families, Estates & SuccessionEstates, trusts, probate, foundations, family business
• Private Clients & Trusted AdvisorsDiscreet personal representation
• Real Estate & Land UseCommercial real estate and land use
• Longevity MedicineRisk, regulation & governance

← Practice

Startups & Technology

Startup counsel for technology companies.

For founders building in hard technology, legal work is not formation paperwork. It is ownership design, capital strategy, control, IP discipline, commercial leverage, and exit optionality.

The startup practice spans technology broadly: software and artificial intelligence, biotechnology and longevity medicine, robotics, and energy storage. These are sectors where technology, regulation, financing, and liability move at different speeds. Barney has co-founded companies and managed and advised angel capital and private equity, and his counsel reflects the operating realities behind the documents.

The firm also represents the other side of the table: see Investors & Corporate Finance.

Services

Formation and structuring, including Delaware conversions; founder equity, vesting, and governance; seed and venture financings (SAFEs, notes, preferred); equity incentive plans; IP assignment and trade-secret discipline; technology transfer and licensing; SBIR/STTR grant support; commercialization and strategic partnerships; regulatory exposure assessment for novel science; M&A and acquihires; succession and exit.

Representative matters

• Advised employees spinning a fabless semiconductor company out of a large technology company: formation, shareholder and employment agreements, angel and venture documentation, vendor and customer contracts.
• Represented a startup software developer against a major commercial real estate customer, structuring the development contract and payment schedule so the client retained its IP and its cash flow.
• Guided a U.S. consumer-device startup through offshore design, engineering, and large-scale manufacturing agreements.
• Helped an early-stage engineering firm build the contracting process for its first major wireless-industry customers while reserving core IP rights.

Representative matters are for illustration only; results vary and cannot be guaranteed.

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Investors & Corporate Finance

Capital, from both sides of the table.

The practice represents investors putting money into companies, and companies raising or borrowing it, often over the life of the same relationship.

For investors

Angel and private investors in early-stage financings (convertible notes, SAFEs, and preferred stock), together with investment structuring, side arrangements, secondaries, and the shareholder questions that follow. Barney managed and advised angel capital and private equity, including Barrington Angels, an angel investment group of women investors backing women-owned and women-led companies.

For companies

Seed and venture rounds; bank credit facilities and loan documentation, including facilities for U.S. subsidiaries of foreign parents; investor relations and shareholder agreements; and, when an enterprise is under stress, corporate turnaround, debt negotiation, assignments for the benefit of creditors, and Chapter 11 reorganization.

Representative matters

• Negotiated a $20 million U.S. bank credit line funding the American subsidiary of a large foreign public company.
• Currently advising on the U.S. credit facilities of a foreign-owned manufacturer establishing North American operations.
• Prepared angel and venture investment documentation for a fabless semiconductor spin-out, from formation through institutional rounds.
• Negotiated buyouts of minority shareholders in private companies, representing departing shareholders in some matters and the acquiring companies in others.

Representative matters are for illustration only; results vary and cannot be guaranteed.

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International Companies

U.S. counsel for foreign-owned companies.

For three decades, foreign-owned companies from across Asia, Europe, and the Americas have relied on Joshua Barney as their counsel for American affairs: establishing subsidiaries, financing them, staffing them, and resolving their problems. Korean and Japanese groups are among the longest engagements; Gulf-based enterprises are among the most recent.

He served as general counsel and financial advisor to the U.S. operations of LSIS (formerly LG Corporation), Kawasaki Trading, and Kia Motor Corporation, among others. The work demands more than legal technique: it requires managing the personal, political, and cultural currents beneath every cross-border matter. Trained at the Hague Academy of International Law and the Brussels Institute on the European Community, Barney has published in international law.

Foreign clients also involve him in matters outside the United States where the issue requires judgment, coordination of local counsel, and continuity of advice.

Services

U.S. market entry, subsidiary formation and governance; foreign investment and acquisitions; cross-border financing; international licensing and technology transfer; import/export and trade; distribution and agency networks; management of foreign and local counsel; U.S. immigration for key executives, investors, and their families; international dispute resolution and treaty matters; local litigation support through affiliated trial counsel.

Representative matters

• Currently serves as U.S. counsel to a UAE-headquartered, family-owned industrial battery manufacturer establishing its North American headquarters and manufacturing operations, advising on its U.S. credit facilities, manufacturing facility leases, and general corporate matters.
• Handled U.S. immigration for the key officers of Kia Motor Corporation and their families upon their arrival in the United States.
• Negotiated a $20 million U.S. bank credit line funding the American subsidiary of a large foreign public company.
• Formed and operationalized U.S. subsidiaries for foreign manufacturers: leases, supplier contracts, employment agreements, distribution.

Representative matters are for illustration only; results vary and cannot be guaranteed.

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Families, Estates & Succession

Counsel to the family, not just the documents.

Estate planning for owners is governance: who controls the company, on what terms, and when; how wealth moves efficiently, lawfully, and without damaging the family relationships it is meant to protect; what the foundation is for.

The practice combines estate planning, probate and trust administration, and the business succession and family-enterprise work that gives them meaning, informed by decades advising owning families, including across cultures where succession carries different weight.

Services

Estate planning and wealth transfer; probate and trust administration; business succession; family-business governance; foundations and nonprofit structures; real estate holdings; investment entities; and selected transactions involving family-owned enterprises.

Representative matters

• Recently concluded a $30 million Illinois probate matter, including the establishment of a private family foundation.
• Established a family foundation for a wealthy individual concerned with legacy and inheritance tax, bringing family members into the design so the structure would hold.
• Mediated disputes among co-owners of large land parcels over sale, development, and environmental liability; the settlements enabled successful development and sale.
• Negotiated buyouts of minority shareholders in private companies, representing departing shareholders in some matters and the acquiring companies in others.

Representative matters are for illustration only; results vary and cannot be guaranteed.

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Private Clients & Trusted Advisors

Discretion is the practice.

Quiet, personal representation for private clients, and for the professional advisors who serve prominent families.

The work includes private legal affairs for individuals in entertainment and other public-facing fields, and for the personal advisors who serve prominent families: designers, business managers, curators, and others. It ranges across investments, fine art and museum transactions, hospitality and leisure assets, educational and philanthropic funding, foundations, personal transactions, estates, real estate, and the family matters best handled quietly.

Services

Entertainment agreements on either side of the table (talent, agents, managers, producers); licensing and content; investment and partnership structures; fine art, museum, and collection transactions; hospitality, casino, and leisure industry assets; educational and philanthropic funding; foundations and nonprofit structures; engagements for designers and other personal advisors to prominent families; personal transactions, estates, and real estate; family matters and confidential dispute resolution.

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Real Estate & Land Use

From the deal to the ground it stands on.

The practice represents landowners, investors, developers, and families in commercial real estate: acquisitions, development, leasing, finance, and workouts. Barney is a chapter author of the Illinois Land Use Handbook (IICLE).

Services

Acquisitions and sales, including tax-deferred exchanges; development, zoning, and municipal relations; leasing; real estate finance, loan restructuring, and workouts; eminent domain and valuation.

Representative matters

• Represented a landowner in an eminent-domain quick-take, securing a higher award at hearing and a still higher price in subsequent valuation negotiations.
• Represented homeowners in public hearings and litigation that blocked development of adjoining parkland; for a different client, represented a developer who prevailed over homeowner objections. We know both sides of the table.

Representative matters are for illustration only; results vary and cannot be guaranteed.

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Longevity Medicine

New medicine, unsettled law.

Longevity medicine is growing faster than its legal infrastructure. Cash-pay models remove insurer gatekeeping; standards of care are fragmented; protocols spread faster than peer review; and consumer marketing blurs into medical advice.

For clinic operators, investors, boards, insurers, founders, and medical directors, the exposure is real, novel, and largely unpriced.

As Director of the Chicago Chapter of Longevity Global, convener of its inaugural Chicago conference in April 2026, and a biotechnology founder, including as president of an organ-transplant technology company, Joshua Barney advises longevity ventures on emerging legal and governance risks: informed-consent architecture for experimental protocols, scope-of-practice and supervision structures, marketing-claim discipline, biologics handling, franchise-model exposure, and the insurance gaps underneath all of it. He is the author of the forthcoming Longevity: The Long View.

Offered as advisory and governance counsel.

Disputes

Dispute strategy before litigation, and litigation management when trial counsel is needed.

When an owner is in a dispute, the first question is not who will file the complaint. The first question is what the dispute threatens, what it is worth, what leverage exists, and whether litigation serves the client's larger interests.

JS Barney, Ltd. provides that early judgment: case assessment and valuation, pre-dispute planning, ADR clauses and dispute-handling systems, and negotiation, mediation, or arbitration when they serve you.

When litigation is required, matters are placed, with client consent, with trial counsel qualified for the forum and the matter. In Illinois, that is often Barney & Karamanis, LLP, the affiliated litigation firm in which Joshua Barney is a partner: business and commercial litigation, shareholder and partnership disputes, real estate and construction litigation, trade secret and IP litigation, employment and executive matters, probate and estate litigation. Elsewhere, the firm draws on a long-standing network of litigation counsel in the relevant jurisdictions. JS Barney, Ltd. remains involved as advisory counsel throughout.

Disclosure: Joshua Barney is a partner of Barney & Karamanis, LLP and has a financial interest in matters referred to that firm. This relationship is disclosed to every client in writing before any referral.

Joshua Barney

Personal counsel to business owners.

His clients are founders, family-owned enterprises, international principals, and private individuals, and his work follows their ownership wherever it leads: companies, financings, succession, estates, investments, and disputes. Many client relationships have continued for decades.

His international practice was built inside it. He served as general counsel and financial advisor to the U.S. operations of LSIS (formerly LG Corporation), Kawasaki Trading, and Kia Motor Corporation, among others; these were long engagements spanning corporate affairs, financing, real estate, and the arrival of key executives and their families in the United States. That practice continues today: he currently serves as U.S. counsel to a UAE-headquartered, family-owned industrial manufacturer establishing its North American headquarters and manufacturing operations. Foreign clients also involve him in non-U.S. matters where continuity, judgment, and coordination of local counsel are central. The matters described on this site are the small fraction that can be described; most of the practice is never discussed.

He is a builder as well as a counselor. Barney has co-founded several technology and biotechnology companies; serves as president of Sentient Perfusion Labs, an organ-transplant technology company; has served as Vice President and General Counsel of MediaTech, a fabless semiconductor company, and of Pharmaceutical Testing Labs, among other officer roles; and managed and advised angel capital and private equity, including Barrington Angels, an angel investment group of women investors backing women-owned and women-led companies. His startup practice concentrates on the sectors he knows from the inside: software and artificial intelligence, biotechnology and longevity medicine, robotics, and energy storage. He is Director of the Chicago Chapter of Longevity Global, convened its inaugural Chicago conference in April 2026, and is the author of the forthcoming Longevity: The Long View.

For families and private clients, his practice combines estate planning, trusts, probate and trust administration, foundations, and business succession, together with discreet representation of private clients and the professional advisors who serve prominent families.

When client matters require trial counsel, they are placed, with client consent, with qualified trial counsel: in Illinois, often Barney & Karamanis, LLP, the Chicago litigation firm in which he is a name partner, and elsewhere from a long-standing network of litigation counsel. He remains involved as the client's advisory counsel.

Barney holds a B.S. in marketing and finance from California State University, Chico, a J.D. from the University of California, Davis, and an LL.M. from Columbia University, with studies at the Hague Academy of International Law and the Brussels Institute on the European Community. He is admitted in California and Illinois and before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and is a member of the Beverly Hills Bar Association. He practices from the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago, with regular work in Washington State, Asia, Europe, and South America.

Credentials & background

Earlier career: NASA Ames Research Center (legal intern); Office of Legislative Counsel, State of California; Arnstein & Lehr, Chicago; law firm owner, Beverly Hills, California; attorney advisor in the formation of Arete Wealth Management. Publications: international law; chapter author, Illinois Land Use Handbook (IICLE). Additional practice experience: Native American law and tribal-related transactions. Beyond the practice: founder of the Green Mansions Foundation, a 501(c)(3) devoted to regenerative community development, including initiatives with Indigenous communities; boards of several nonprofit organizations; president, Barrington Fencing Club.

For Referring Advisors

You can send your client to one person.

For the accountants, wealth managers, family offices, business managers, investors, designers, and lawyers who advise owners.

If the matter involves a company, a financing, an estate, a succession issue, a cross-border problem, or an ownership dispute, JS Barney, Ltd. can assess it, handle it, or help place it with appropriate counsel while remaining involved as the client's advisor.

Clients are handled personally and discreetly, without being routed into an intake machine. Part of the service is placement itself: when the right answer is another professional (specialist counsel, a financial advisor, a fiduciary, an accountant), the firm identifies the right one, makes the introduction, and stays involved. If the matter is not one the firm should accept, the referral is treated with the same care.

How we work

Every engagement begins the same way: a conflict check, a referral or intake conversation, and a written engagement that defines the role: counsel, outside general counsel, transaction counsel, or dispute manager.

The work is coordinated, not siloed. Depending on the matter, that means working alongside your client's accountants, wealth managers, family office, foreign counsel, or, with your client's consent, trial counsel suited to the forum, including affiliated counsel at Barney & Karamanis, LLP.

Technology is used wherever it reduces cost and improves speed. Judgment remains personal.

inquiry@jsbarney.com

Contact

Representation by referral.

JS Barney, Ltd. accepts new matters principally through referrals from clients, lawyers, accountants, wealth managers, investors, and other professional advisors. If you were referred, please identify the referring person in your message.

Please do not send confidential information until JS Barney, Ltd. has confirmed in writing that it represents you.

Reach us

• Email: inquiry@jsbarney.com
• Telephone: 847-382-2221
• Chicago: Two Prudential Plaza, 180 N. Stetson Ave., Suite 3050, Chicago, IL 60601
• California: 2000 Broadway, Redwood City, CA 94063

JS Barney, Ltd. advises clients from California and Illinois, with selected matters involving national and international companies, families, and transactions. Litigation services, when appropriate and with client consent, are provided through qualified trial counsel, including Barney & Karamanis, LLP, an affiliated Illinois litigation firm in which Joshua Barney is a partner.

Disclosures

Required information.

JS Barney, Ltd. is a California corporation. Offices: Two Prudential Plaza, 180 N. Stetson Ave., Suite 3050, Chicago, IL 60601, and 2000 Broadway, Redwood City, CA 94063. Telephone 847-382-2221.

Joshua Barney is admitted to practice in California and Illinois and before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

JS Barney, Ltd. does not provide litigation services. When litigation is required, matters are placed, with client consent, with qualified trial counsel, including Barney & Karamanis, LLP, an affiliated Illinois litigation firm in which Joshua Barney is a partner. Joshua Barney has a financial interest in matters placed with Barney & Karamanis, LLP; this relationship is disclosed to every client in writing before any placement.

This website is attorney advertising. Representative matters are for illustration only; prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Nothing on this site is legal advice, and viewing it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Please do not send confidential information until JS Barney, Ltd. has confirmed in writing that it represents you.