We recently connected with Amanda Gayle, Esq. and have shared our conversation below.

Amanda, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Absolutely! At Gayle Law Firm PLLC, I approach my practice from a community-centered, holistic lens by not just offering top-quality legal services, but also helping clients navigate how to build their brands, offering advice on marketing, brand name selection, encouraging them to apply for grants and even supporting them at their private launch events.

When we think about what lawyers traditionally do, we typically think solely of a transactional experience, but that isn’t the case at my firm. When I started the firm, I knew I wanted to be more than that; I wanted to truly be a resource to my client community and place them in the best position to excel at business; not just by forming a relationship with me, but with each other.

Although my practice is virtual- each year I host a community event, whether it’s a BBQ or our holiday party so the community of entrepreneurs I represent can get to know each other and discover if there’s any alignment in what they do.

Amanda, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a Brooklyn-born and raised serial entrepreneur whose law practice began as I launched my first business, Believe In You Tees, a T-shirt company that I created to empower professional students. As I prepared to release the first design, I Will Pass the Bar ®, I was so afraid that large bar prep companies would learn of the design and steal it. Faced with that discomfort, I shifted my attention from the racial justice legal work that I’d done since law school and concentrated on intellectual property, learning all I could. By 2018, I successfully obtained my first trademark and was elated.

Gayle Law Firm PLLC was built because of that feeling; the anxiety you feel as an entrepreneur with a great idea that you want to protect. Plain and simple. As we enter our 4th year of private solo practice, I continue to ensure that my clients are protected, assisting them with everything from trademarks to investment agreements, negotiating deals that help them secure more money, maintain equity of their brands and ultimately achieve what we both envision for them; generational and intergenerational wealth.

I’m most proud of that and know that this business is about more than me; it’s about community, specifically helping underrepresented entrepreneur communities who may be the first generation in their families to succeed.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

My authenticity. When people meet me, after we’ve shared a joke or exchanged a compliment, they are often surprised that I’m a lawyer because of how down to earth I am. While to some, being a lawyer is a prestigious profession, for me, it’s a customer service role where I just show up as myself and concentrate on helping others. I appreciate that that’s the energy people perceive when they meet me, because for me, that’s what it’s all about.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

My business, intellectual property and entertainment law practice is actually my second career in law. All throughout law school I studied racial justice, working for the ACLU and interning at Bronx Defenders, as my original passion for becoming a lawyer was rooted in my need to help empower and advocate against racial and social injustice. After graduation, I went on to be a public defender, and later a police misconduct prosecutor. While I truly enjoyed the work and am still very proud of what I was able to accomplish, the work was so emotionally taxing, by my 4th year doing it, I was burned out and felt helpless; I realized the system, which we still fight against today, is bigger than one person or even the countless other professionals who have dedicated their lives to fight against it.

Eager to find a way that I could continue to help underrepresented communities, following my own entrepreneurship journey, I decided to represent business owners to build, develop and protect their businesses, because it would not only allow me to help those in need, but in a way that would provide them with long-term liberation and financial security for themselves and their families. The rest is history.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.agaylelaw.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/agaylelaw
• Facebook: Amanda C. Gayle, Esq.
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-c-gayle-esq-9750702b
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/agaylelaw

Image Credits
Photo Credit: Colville Heskey