Brian Meanley Lawyer Nelson Mullins NCA Chat 2024

Transcript

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One of our mottos is to keep clubs out of court.

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We don't want court because when you go to court, regardless of whether you were right or wrong, the private matters of the club get exposed.

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Court documents in most jurisdictions are a public record, so everybody knows what was said.

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Everybody knows if this board, if you know the board, this board member doesn't like the member or the member who's being expelled.

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So you don't want dirty laundry being aired.

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No club does.

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Hey everyone, Welcome back to Private Club Radio, the industry source for news trends, updates and conversations all in the world of private golf and country clubs.

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I'm your host, Denny Corby.

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Thank you all for being here.

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Whether you're brand new to the world of private golf and country clubs, I'm your host, Denny Corby.

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Thank you all for being here.

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Whether you're brand new to the world of private golf and country clubs or consummate professional, welcome back.

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Appreciate y'all being here.

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In this episode I'm bringing on Brian Meanley from Nelson Mullins.

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He's a lawyer who does a lot of work when it comes to disciplinary actions and items and things when it comes to our members in our clubs, and he was introduced to me through Paul Dank Kenis member vetting, one of our show partners here.

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If you are not doing good investigative background due diligence on your applicants and potential members who are coming into the club, you need to be.

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Now more than ever.

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People are traveling a lot, People are coming from different areas and they're new to areas and not everyone knows who these potential applicants are.

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And Kenneth does a really phenomenal job of fact-based member vetting, doing the research, finding out who these people actually are and making sure they are who they say they are on.

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The application, which is really what it boils down to, is fact-based member vetting making sure the people who are applying to be members of the club are who they say they are.

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So Brian was very nice.

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I put him on the spot.

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I said, hey, how about you come on and we do an episode just on what you do with clubs and what these disciplinary actions are.

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Some of you might already know, but for those of you who might be a little bit newer to the industry, this would be a great episode as well.

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Big thanks to our show partners, obviously Kenneth Paul Dank and Member Vettingting and myself.

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Shameless plug, I do a.

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I have the Denny Corby experience, which is a really fun, interactive comedy, magic and mind reading show.

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The show is designed this specific, specific show just for clubs.

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It's a really fun full evening of entertainment, starting with the cocktail hour, weaving it through the entire meal.

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It's a really good time.

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If you'd like to learn more, head on over to dennycorbycom.

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That's dennycorbycom.

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On that note, let's welcome Brian Meanley.

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Hey, everyone, Welcome to Private Club Radio Live here at the NCA show.

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Here for a quick little episode with my friend, Brian Meanley, from Nelson Mullins.

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My background is almost exclusively representing clubs as well as the communities that surround them.

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Initially, when I first started practicing, I represented homeowners associations and condominium associations, which are run by volunteer boards and owners, much like clubs nowadays.

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It's very similar practice.

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So as my practice evolved and as I got more experience, I kind of transitioned more into the club space, you know, the private club space, the country club space.

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There's a lot of overlap, there's a lot of similarities between the types of practice and the issues that come up.

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Both sorts of entities have governing documents, bylaws, articles of incorporation, rules, which articles, and corporation rules which everybody has to follow.

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And primarily the focus of our practice now is is drafting, amending, advising regarding compliance with governing documents, all manner of club operations and governance under their sets of documents.

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That's about 50 to 60 percent of what I do is write club documents and a lot.

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Lot of that is, if I remember correctly, is people who do things wrong like disciplinary stuff.

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Of course, of course, and invariably any club, most clubs are going to have within their documents a discipline section which talks about members behaving badly and what happens when a member slaps somebody on the bud or what happens when two people hit each other with their golf clubs on the golf course.

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You know those things happen.

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There's been news stories In South Florida, where I practice.

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There was a news story recently where you know members got into a fight on the golf course and one of them got beat over the head with a club.

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So you're invariably going to run into situations where members don't get along.

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Members don't follow the documents, members don't comply with the rules that are expected of members within a club.

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You've got to protect your reputation as a club so you've got to discipline those members.

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What's that process like?

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What's it like doing disciplinary actions in the club?

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What's the usual steps?

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Well, the first step is to call your lawyer because your lawyer is going to look at your documents.

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Now, are you talking from the club's point of view or the member point of view?

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Well, from the club's point of view, the member point of view.

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Well, from the club's point of view the member you know, sometimes they bring a lawyer to these disciplinary hearings.

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But from the club's point of view, though, you have to look at your documents, you have to follow your documents, otherwise, whatever penalty or suspension you're going to impose is going to be subject to challenge and potentially risk exposure to the club in some form or another, if not an angry member and his friends and his cliques making claims.

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But the first thing you want to do is look at your documents.

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If your documents will have a provision that normally says any member who engages in conduct that is likely to endanger the welfare, good reputation of the club and its members.

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There's different words that are used, but they mean the same thing.

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If you're harming the club, harming the members, breaking the rules, you're subject to discipline.

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Most of the time, the discipline is suspension 30 days.

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I've seen up to a year, really, in extreme cases, members get kicked out.

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And that's just part of being a member of a club is living by the rules that you agreed to join or you agreed to comply with when you joined the club.

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What are the most common types of disciplinary actions that you see being done and that you're handling?

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Well, the disciplinary action is usually a suspension, whether it be most club documents have.

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The board can implement a fine or a reprimand or a censure or a suspension, but the most common thing we see is a suspension, and normally it's for things like conduct at the club getting a little bit inebriated, inebriated, yes, inebriated, and slapping the butt Some Russian hands and Roman fingers.

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Those two sometimes go hand in hand.

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Other things I've seen clubs discipline members for conduct outside the club.

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Really that makes sense Because the provision in the documents is most likely going to read engaging in conduct that harms the reputation of the club.

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No club wants to be associated with members who are behaving as expected of a member when they're outside the club.

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So, regardless, a club, anytime there's disciplinary action, should call their legal.

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Well, I would say regardless.

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I would say regardless.

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Many clubs operate effectively and they have this streamlined procedure.

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Where there's a report, there's an incident report filed, it goes to the GM or the COO.

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The COO investigates it.

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Most clubs have an investigatory process where they have a grievance investigation committee or a violation investigation committee and who looks at, conducts interviews, reads the reports, will determine if there's actually a violation and then recommend some sort of sanction or penalty to be imposed and and then it goes to the board to vote up or down whether there's going to be the recommended penalty.

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So I wouldn't say you always call your lawyer.

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I say that just because I'm always getting calls.

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Most clubs probably don't have to call their lawyer unless there's an issue, unless you know, especially if a club member hires a lawyer, the lawyer wants to attend the hearing.

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You want to get your counsel involved because you don't want anything to happen that's going to subject the club to liability or damages.

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How often do members bring their own lawyers to?

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So I'm assuming at this point, when action is being taken, there's meetings, they're you know they're coming into the club, there's a couple of people involved.

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How often?

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And should club members, if they are in this position, which I hope they're not, but you said sometimes they bring lawyers, should they?

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What's that?

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Well, sometimes they do.

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I would say it's rare.

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In the grand scheme of things, it's pretty rare for a club member to bring a lawyer because most of the time when it's the member did what they're accused of doing, and, and, and they come to the hearing or whatever the process is with.

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You know, you know the hands out, they, they ask for forgiveness and which is the goal.

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They should, they should come there and and, especially if, um, they actually did the conduct of what they're accused, they, they, they want forgiveness, they want to continue to be a member of the club.

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They don't want their reputation amongst the club to be harmed.

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So it's rare.

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But when they do bring a lawyer, it's more than likely in the case of a lengthy suspension or even an expulsion when you're kicking him out.

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I was just talking with a board member of a club a few minutes ago about when you kick them out.

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You have to consider all types of things, such as the payment, the equity payment, the joining contribution that they, when they purchase the membership, whether you have to refund it.

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If your documents don't have a provision, whether that has to be refunded.

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If you kick them out, you're most likely going to have to refund it.

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So a member gets in trouble.

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What's like the standard process.

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How does the whole thing work.

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Normally the procedure is the member gets a letter or a notice, as you'd say, with the details of the proposed discipline, whether it's suspension or expulsion, and gives them a chance to request a hearing.

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Sometimes there's already a hearing set in connection with the discipline.

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It depends on the club and the documents and what procedures they have to follow.

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But normally there's a notice and then there's a hearing in front of the board and the purpose of that hearing is for the member to explain, plead and in a lot of cases with the board, not to suspend them or expel them.

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And if you don't comply with the procedures called for in your documents, then the member could, you could end up in court, and our practice, one of our mottos, is to keep clubs out of court.

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We don't want court because when you go to court, regardless of whether you were right or wrong, the private matters of the club get exposed.

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Court documents in most jurisdictions are a public record.

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So you have, everybody knows what was said.

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Everybody knows, you know if you know the board, this board member doesn't like the member or the member who's being expelled.

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So, um, you don't want dirty laundry being aired.

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No club does hope you all enjoyed that episode.

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Catch you all on the flippity flip.