We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chayla C. Jackson, Esq.. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chayla C. below.

Chayla C. , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

One thing that attorneys can attest to is that the legal industry is not an industry that changes quickly. COVID showed that many of the challenges to virtual lawyering were overcome when there was no alternative.

As such, lawyering focuses on the lawyering but small business owners need more than that. They need access to legal strategies, like Fortune 500 companies such as Amazon and Google, to guide their company’s decisions through the matrix of laws and regulations.

The obstacles to that are cost and access. For those reasons, small business owners rely on what they find online which is mixed with a ton of misinformation. The misinformation they rely on, the legal mistakes they make, and what they simply do not know about the legal side of business are undermining their efforts to grow wealth and exposing them to unseen legal threats.

Unlike other business attorneys, I have embraced the reality that
business owners will DIY the legal in their business without seeking an attorney. That is why I am big on education. I focus on the lawyering through my law firm and legal coaching through my legal membership.

Every month in my legal membership, I coach CEOs how to DIY the legal side of their business safely.

For less than two consultations with an attorney, small business owners get access to a year’s worth of educational content teaching them the strategies business attorneys use to protect their clients.

In our contract series, one member, let’s call her Jane, reviewed the contract she received from her coaching program. Jane had been using the contract template they provided with her coaching clients. After going over the basics of a legally binding contract and contract drafting tips, she realized the contract from her coaching program was exposing her to liability and her LLC did not protect her. One simple change and she was legally protected.

This may sound simple, but compare that to a client who came to me in the midst of their client threatening to breach a signed contract. My client made the same mistake that Jane made, but my client was at risk of having to cough up more than $20,000 personally, not the LLC.

The power of education is that Jane had the privilege to correct her contract mistake without facing a lawsuit or being personally on the hook for $20,000.

Learning from the internet small business owners know they need a contract, but with my legal membership they learn how to properly draft and use the contract so it actually protects them.

Ideally, business owners should seek an attorney. Realistically, those costs add up and legal services miss providing the comprehensive legal guidance small businesses need.

Through my law firm and legal membership, I’m paving a way for more business owners to build legally protected businesses and legacies.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am Chayla Jackson, Esq., Legal Protection Strategist for women CEOs and small business owners. I am a business attorney and legal coach helping CEOs build legally protected businesses and legacies. I graduated Georgetown Law realizing that criminal defense was not the career path I truly desired when I started law school.

I always had a business law interest from my entrepreneurial days in college. During the pandemic, I was speaking on a business panel and I heard other speakers giving wrong legal advice. After speaking to one woman who had been operating her business for years believing she had an LLC, I did one search and discovered she in fact did not have a LLC.

This moment made me realized I had a unique opportunity as a trained lawyer and teacher to position myself to help small businesses owners and make the law easy to understand.

I started with my book, Build A Legit Business, and that grew into DIY legal courses and contract templates.

In April of 2021, I launched my law firm, Legacy Legal & Consulting Firm, a virtual law firm for CEOs on the go in Maryland and DC. Realizing more CEOs needed what I was providing my clients, I opened the Legalproof Your Business Membership for U.S. service based business owners.

I am proud of the growing number of CEOs who tell me they’ve implemented a legal strategy I taught them, launched their business, and no longer make the legal mistakes I expose when teaching.

The truth is… You cannot ignore the law and grow a profitable business. Majority of wealth in the U.S. is built through business. No matter what stage a business is in, they need access to legal knowledge and strategy for their specific industry. That is something the internet cannot provide.

The work I do is still very much connected to my heart for disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline. In criminal defense, you see the collateral consequences of imprisonment and poverty. Business allows people who otherwise would not have upward mobility to remove barriers on their income and that reduces crime and gives children of those parents a better quality of life.

As they say on the internet, IYKYK, fines, penalties, and lawsuits cut away at wealth and ignorance of the law is why wealth is not properly preserved for the next generation. That is one reason why I offer families of business owners access to my membership and lifetime access to certain courses at no additional charge. I am helping families build generational wealth in business through legal education and access.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Time is money. You hear it. You see the evidence of this false narrative. Work any hourly job and you see the correlation of time worked to money earned.

When starting my business, I began unlearning the time is money lie as I heard my phone notify me of a sale that paid for the dinner I just ate.

As someone who worked two jobs in college, the feeling of earning while living and waking up to sales was refreshing.

In the early years of being a practicing attorney, I was being paid $22 a hour. That time is money lie was reinforced by the reality of “don’t work, don’t get paid.” At this point in business, I was speaking and had booked a speaking gig that paid me $1,500 for one hour of my time.

I learned that time is not money but what I do with the time I have can either increase or decrease my opportunity to earn money, that includes the investments I make in increasing my value in the market.

Unlearning that lie led me to restructure my business to give me more freedom and avoid creating another 9 to 5 job for myself. I now encourage CEOs I coach not to create another job either.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Referrals and speaking engagements have been the best sources of new clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.legacylegalconsult.com; www.iamchaylajackson.com
• Instagram: @iamchaylajackson ; @legacylegalcf
• Facebook: @iamchaylajackson ; @legacylegalcf
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chaylacjackson
• Youtube: http://youtube.com/@legacylegalcf
• Other: Legalproof Your Business Membership: www.legalproofmybiz.com