Business Lawyers Focused on the Restaurant and Hospitality Industry

About Us

In business, it's easy to get lost, even when you know where you want to go. Here at the Morris ...
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Our Attorneys

Sean T. Morris founded The Morris Law Firm in 2010 and he is also the principal attorney in the firm...
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Practice Areas

The Morris Law Firm has established a broad-based practice that aims to fulfill many, if not most, o...
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Contact

Our offices are conveniently located in downtown Rockville, Maryland: The Morris Law Firm, LLC 5...
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Practice Areas

Restaurant Law

A full suite of services for start-up and growing restaurants, representing small independents to large national chains.

Alcoholic Beverage Law

The area's top liquor licensing law firm, assisting clients in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC with new licenses, transfers, compliance and enforcement actions.

Leasing and Real Estate Law

We assist our business and restaurant clients with lease review and negotiations as well as purchases and sales of commercial properties.

General Business Law

From entity formation to operating agreements to sale transactions - all in the hands of someone who knows you and your business.
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Sean T. Morris, Founding Member

The Morris Law Firm was founded by Sean T. Morris, who is also the principal attorney in the firm. Sean focuses his law practice on the needs of small and medium-sized businesses, assisting with purchase and sale transactions, organizational and operational documents, real estate issues, administrative matters, and business disputes. Sean’s practice has a special focus on the legal needs of restaurant owners and he is one of the most sought-after authorities in the DC metro area on alcoholic beverage matters across all industries.

Restaurant Law Blog

One of the most important provisions in any restaurant lease is when the tenant has to start paying rent.  We call this the “rent commencement date” in most leases (or “RCD” for short) and it is rarely the date the lease is signed, or even when possession is turned over to the tenant.  Rather, the tenant is […]

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Before I started working with restaurants as an attorney, I did not know anything about the concept of percentage rent.  I didn’t even know it existed.  If you are reading this, you probably understand the basic idea of percentage rent, but if not:  it is where a tenant pays a percentage of its annual revenues […]

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Many people new to the restaurant business are unfamiliar with the concept of percentage rent. In a restaurant lease, percentage rent provisions allow the Landlord to share in the profits of the business, often in exchange for a lower base rent. The idea is that if the restaurant makes a lot of money, the Tenant […]

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