One of the reasons why I'm working with employee ownership trusts (EOTs) and other employee ownership models is that I find it incredibly rewarding to find creative solutions for clients. Some of what my team does is routine, but where we can really offer value is by vetting and implementing novel structures and ideas--approaches that don't yet have a well-worn playbook. 

Being on the cutting edge means there is often no clear template to follow. My job is to inform the client of risks and rewards and help them make an educated decision. Ultimately, it's the client's decision how to balance those competing interests, but I provide them with the tools to do so. 

If appropriate, I'm not afraid to advise that the cutting edge is too treacherous … that the risks are likely not worth it. For example, I've seen overly aggressive marketing of ESOPs to cannabis companies, and I've also seen sketchy medical plan products marketed to employers desperate to control insurance costs. 

Because I take such pride in being creative and in being a source of information and alternatives for my clients, I am disappointed when I hear stories of attorneys who produce cookie-cutter work product, or flood their clients with an avalanche of rules and paper and expect the client to navigate their own path through it. In reading Eric Ries's new book, Incorruptible, he recounts a founder's description of his experience with lawyers in transitioning his business to an employee-ownership model:

“Between meetings, the lawyers kept changing the documents back to ‘best practices’ and ‘market standard.’ …. Afterward, he called me to vent: ‘I feel like I just negotiated with my own lawyers and lost.’” [p200]

Ouch. 

The book is full of inspiring, informative, and creative ways of building a mission-driven company. My hope is to find ways of bringing those ideas to clients, and in doing so, to dispel the stereotype of stuffy, inflexible lawyers.