Susan Tegt

Practice Overview

Susan Tegt represents and counsels clients in a wide variety of commercial, contractual, franchise and distribution disputes. Susan’s experience distinctively includes serving as in-house corporate counsel for two franchise brands: the emerging Waxing the City® brand and top global franchise, Anytime Fitness®. She is also a seasoned trial attorney with comprehensive experience in arbitration and litigation in the state and federal district and appellate courts. With Susan’s range of experience, her clients trust her as both a zealous advocate and someone who will find practical and clear solutions to challenging problems.

Representative Experience

Franchise Litigation

• Misrepresentation Claims. Susan assists her franchisor clients defend against claims alleging misrepresentation in connection with sales and operation of the franchise. She also has experience working with national franchise brands to limit their exposure to such claims, from drafting compliant financial disclosures to developing internal processes to ensure compliance.
• Noncompete Agreements. Susan is routinely involved in enforcing franchise agreements’ noncompete terms against current and former franchisees who attempt to take knowledge and experience gained from franchisors and use it to operate their own competing businesses, both domestically and abroad.
• Trademark Infringement Claims. Susan is regularly involved in enforcing the global trademark rights of her franchisor clients, from protecting franchisors when a franchisee fails to de-identify a terminated unit to preventing third-parties from wrongfully using her clients trademarks.
• Consumer Class Action Claims. Susan assisted in obtaining the prompt dismissal of consumer claims seeking class certification brought by a customer of a national franchisor client.

Franchising

• Served as as in-house corporate counsel for Self Esteem Brands, LLC, parent company of Anytime Fitness, LLC and Waxing the City Worldwide, LLC. Susan managed all legal aspects of the two brands’ vendor relationships, franchise sales programs, franchise registration, operations and compliance.