Today we’d like to introduce you to Adam Yohanan

Adam, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?

I started my career as a Wall Street lawyer, closing billion-dollar transactions for banks and private equity firms. But at some point, I realized that was not my path, so I gave it all up to start my own law firm serving Main Street businesses across the USA.

When I was a Wall Street lawyer, I worked in the largest law firms and served the biggest clients, but many restrictions bothered me. For example, I could not serve the clients how I wanted to and develop my own style for practicing law because the method of practice and the style of service were so rigid.

Senior lawyers at the firm determined the style of practice, and each lawyer needed to fit into the firm’s overall brand. But this didn’t work for me because the strictures of corporate America prevented me from finding my own style and my own methods of practice. As I went on my own, I had to learn how to decide for myself and figure out my approach. When I dealt with clients and did my drafting and legal analysis, I borrowed a lot of what I learned at the big firms, but I also changed a few things around and added a few of my own techniques. Today I’m proud to say my style of practicing law is a blend of things I picked up in big firms and innovations that I added myself.

Another aspect of my transition from the big Wall Street corporate firms into private practice in my own firm is that I needed to learn about business development. The institution and the key lawyers do all client marketing and sales in big firms. But when you go alone, you must learn all that for the first time. This was a tough aspect of my journey because I had zero clients. Starting at zero, I desperately scraped together a small client list to get started, and I used the credibility from that small list to gain even more clients.

This whole process of going from the big firms into my own business not only changed me as a lawyer and a business person, but it also changed my personal life. I need to learn how to enjoy life and view myself as a professional in the world without an affiliation with a big firm. In some ways, this was easy because I had a ton of free time on my hands to dedicate to my personal life, but on the other hand, I had a lot less money at first, and I had to live with being on a tight budget after years as a well paid corporate employee. But despite these lifestyle shifts, I always felt like the freedom and autonomy of my new life were more valuable than any prestige or money I got from the big firms.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?

The biggest struggles for me have been finding and managing clients, employees, and contractors/vendors. These are skills that are rarely addressed in law school. They are people skills, and I didn’t have such great people skills because my career was focused primarily on being a paper pusher. So, I had to learn a few new things.

Learning how to attract clients was tough because my marketing and sales skills were lacking. However, I did have my legal skills, so I led my marketing and sales efforts by integrating my legal skills into the process. For example, in marketing, I released educational content that showed off my skills and legal knowledge instead of gimmicky concepts to draw people in like many lawyers. These efforts impressed the first few clients. On the sales side, it was similar because when I would do pitches or talk with potential clients, I did not have the traditional sales tool to convince them to sign with me, but what I had was some good knowledge I could provide to them to show them that I knew was I was talking about. As time passed, I learned more of the traditional marketing and sales skills and started incorporating them into my marketing and sales process. Still, I always kept in touch with the educational approach to marketing and sales.

Another big challenge was dealing with workers, including potential employees and contractors. I expect a lot from people. I expect a lot from myself, so why should I let others off the hook? I have been through multiple vendors in every aspect of the business, including paralegals, bookkeepers, and marketing professionals. At first, I didn’t know how to motivate or lead people because that wasn’t taught to me in law school or the big law firms. However, over time, I started to connect with my workers more and learned how to identify what they really want and what really drives them. I learned how to ask questions directly about what people want and what people can provide.

We’ve been impressed with Yohanan Law, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?

Yohanan Law is a business law firm. We solve problems for businesses. Specifically, we help businesses form their legal entities. We create agreements among partners that ensure smooth operations, governance, and transitions between owners and managers. We help businesses buy other businesses, prepare for a sale and execute the sale, help businesses raise money from investors, and help investors invest in businesses. We help businesses operate by drafting and negotiating their contracts with vendors and other partners. We help businesses grow by securing intellectual property, including trademarks. We help businesses manage themselves by advising on corporate governance, including board approvals. We help businesses deal with partnership breakups, and we support amicable transitions.

There are many law firms who provide the above services, but we distinguish ourselves in several ways: (1) we bring my expertise from Big Law to small and medium sized companies, allowing these businesses to have access to expertise normally reserved for the largest companies; (2) we price on a flat fee basis for most deals, allowing businesses to have pricing certainty and security; (3) we explain to clients the meaning of each key part of a deal so they can weight benefits and risks for themselves and make decisions, whereas some lawyers don’t explain what’s going on using accessible language, leaving their clients confused and alienated from the legal process; (4) we are not afraid to make decisions ourselves if our clients need a clear recommendation, whereas many firms are scared to do this because they are afraid to be wrong; (5) we are ultra available and ultra responsive, there is never an issue getting a hold of us and we just on projects very quickly; (6) we understand when to be accommodating, whereas as many lawyers are too aggressive, but we also know how to fight hard for clients, whereas many lawyers are too soft in rough situations, or they don’t know when a situation is friendly versus combative.

Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?

I rely heavily on Ken Adams’ Manual Style of Contract Drafting and various resources from Laura Frederick, a leading contract law expert. In addition, I follow various subject matter experts in intellectual property and corporate law. Overall, I try to take in as much information as possible and make learning new things part of my daily practice as a lawyer. My team is required to do daily trainings where we review the key texts and updates to our areas of law. With all this information, it’s easy to lose track of everything and not retain what’s important. Still, I prevent that by teaching others, not only through internal training but also through my own podcast (Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6NZAu65w7wiUH02HM5Vn0X) and newsletter (yohananletter.com).

Pricing:

• M&A – Flat Fee Pricing
• Investing and Fundraising – Flat Fee Pricing
• Business Formations – Flat Fee Pricing
• Commercial Contracts – Flat Fee Pricing
• Trademarks – Flat Fee Pricing

Contact Info:

• Website: https://yohananlaw.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamyohanan/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@YohananLaw
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/yohanan-law-brooklyn-4
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@yohananlaw