Nina Kaufman is a small business champion—not just your ordinary business attorney. Forbes Magazine calls her “One of the 25 Most Influential Women Tweeting about Entrepreneurship.” The U.S. Small Business Administration named her their regional Women in Business Champion of the Year for her creative approaches to educating and advocating for small businesses. In over 15 years in business, Kaufman has helped thousands of entrepreneurs in the generation of tens of millions of dollars by working diligently to help her clients save time, money and aggravation with business law issues. As a trusted thought leader, Kaufman reaches over 2 million readers each month on Entrepreneur.com.
Nina says:
I’m often asked, “Why did you become a lawyer?” And I’ll quip, “Because I saw “To Kill a Mockingbird” at an impressionable age.” There’s truth behind the (attempted) humor. I wanted to be Atticus Finch when I grew up. Still do. Someone wise, trusted, and decent who helped solve people’s legal problems with integrity.
Couple that with the fact that I’m a bookworm, a ham, and an avid writer—it’s no surprise my practice has evolved as it has. I’m an educator at heart, and my beat is small business law. My mission is to demystify legal mumbo-jumbo for entrepreneurs and business owners. I want you to have the legal bedrock you need to build a sustainable company that supports you, your family, and your community. That’s reflected in my multi-faceted approach to legal services, my writing, my professional speaking, and the resources I’ve created for entrepreneurs. I wear many hats, but then, so do my business clients.
When I was young and green and had just passed the bar exam, a mentor gave me a dog-eared, hand-written copy of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Success.” He had been carrying it in his wallet for years, eager for the right opportunity to share it. It reminds me that success has many wonderful dimensions in addition to financial ones. Click to expand/collapse the poem
SUCCESS
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty,
To find the best in others,
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
For those who want to know more, here’s the official bio. The details:
Nina L. Kaufman, Esq., owner of Ask The Business Lawyer, is an award-winning small business attorney, speaker, and Entrepreneur Magazine online contributor. Nina has a personal mission of offering “straight-talk legal to bolster your business.” Nina saves consulting, creative, and professional services companies’ time, money, and aggravation by providing the legal foundation they need for success. This gives them the legal bedrock they need to build self-sustaining companies. Her creative approaches to serving the small business community garnered her the SBA’s 2011 regional Women in Business Champion of the Year Award. With a multi-faceted business model, developed from over 15 years of small business legal experience, Nina guides “knowledge economy” firms through the legal issues they face in starting and running their own companies. She also applies her acumen to attorneys looking to start their own law practices.
With skills honed on the stand-up comedy stage, Nina is a sought-after professional speaker and has given seminars, workshops and presentations for numerous organizations in the New York area. Audiences welcome her humorous, practical way of handling the issues that cause deer-in-the-headlights paralysis: How do we choose business partners who won’t [BLEEP] us? How can we train our clients to pay us? How can we protect our intellectual property? And more importantly, how can we address all of these issues in the context of a business model that supports our larger growth? She has been a featured panelist on the subject of legal issues in social media at the BlogHer for Business and Women’s Congress annual conferences. She has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, Crain’s NY, Forbes.com, SmallBusinessComputing.com, PINK magazine, The New York Law Journal, the American Bar Association Journal, and Entrepreneur magazine and has appeared on MSNBC and Fox Channel 5′s Good Day NY program.
A prolific writer, Nina has been pegged by Forbes.com as one of the 25 most influential women tweeting about entrepreneurship and one of the top 30 women entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. She is a regular contributor to Entrepreneur magazine online, having authored their Business Law Advisor column and Making It Legal blog, in addition to currently serving as one of their Ask Entrepreneur experts. She publishes her own AskTheBusinessLawyer blog and weekly ezine on small business legal issues, Lex Appeal. She serves as the Intellectual Property Law Expert for Forbes.com’s Small Business Exchange. Nina has contributed articles on a wide range of small business law issues to publications and media outlets including The E-Myth Insider, the New York Enterprise Report, MyVenturePad, Enterprising Woman, WomenandBiz.com, the American Bar Association’s GP/Solo Magazine, DivineCaroline, WorkHerWay, and VA Today Magazine.
From early in her career, Nina understood the importance of entrepreneurship as a vehicle for financial independence, freedom, and options—particularly for women business owners. As a young attorney, she saw how the traditional law firm model stifled creativity and enforced a servile dependence on “The Firm” by the lawyers who worked there. This bred a willingness by some attorneys to cut ethical corners, back-stab, and abuse their “colleagues. As a result, in 1996, Nina took the entrepreneurial leap and began providing legal service to real people– with integrity. Where she could create her own family of clients. Where she had the opportunity to do well while doing good. That’s how Ask The Business Lawyer and Kaufman Law PLLC were born.
Nina was an active Board member of the National Association of Women Business Owners-New York City Chapter (NAWBO-NYC) for many years. She is a long-standing member of the SEC Roughriders chapter of Toastmasters International. In addition to her interests in international travel, photography, and being a Mets fan (by marriage), she is an active member of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in New York City, where she has volunteered at their homeless shelter for more than a decade.
Who We Want to Talk To
From the launch of our law firm in 1996, through its evolution to Ask The Business Lawyer, we actively sought to work with B2B knowledge economy companies as our clients. Our New York-based law firm enjoys working with left-brain companies and other business-focused professional firms companies such as those in:
Creative Communications
Consulting
Legal Services
Web or Graphic Design
Marketing Strategy
Branding
Visual Identity Branding
Crisis Communications
Corporate Communications
Corporate Training
Professional Speaking
Social Media Marketing
Advertising
Why do we love working with these clients so much?
“Creative and professional services companies are optimistic, creative (no surprise), and team-oriented. They’re on a constant quest for improvement–whether it’s productivity, revenue, or self-growth as leaders. They understand what it means to roll up your sleeves and get in the muck. They love what they do and want to delegate what they don’t to a trusted team of advisors and staff. They enjoy a good laugh. They put in the long hours, months, and years to realize a vision and make a difference in the world. They’re my kind of people.”- Nina Kaufman
This blog is not your attorney. Nothing we post on this blog makes us your attorneys. You're smart enough to know this (we hope). If you like legalese, read our full disclaimer.
Transitioning a business is never easy under the best of circumstances; having a family succession plan is even thornier.After all, you are entrusting your life’s work to people who, years ago, may have (1) stolen your boyfriend (or favorite party dress or Johnny Mathis album), (2) crashed the station wagon while carousing after a high […]
I received an e-mail out of the blue recently about how to protect an idea. Not a plan, not a project, not something tangible . . . but a thought about a new approach to pet care. That’s about as much information as I have. Understandably, the entrepreneur was reluctant to disclose the idea because […]
Entrepreneurship can be a bumpy ride. But you’re not alone. Join the conversation on how legal (and other) issues impact your small business. Our blog has plenty of info in plain English just waiting for you to explore.
You’re in good company.
Taking on a business partner is not a decision to be made lightly. It’s much like getting married. With the tools provided to you in The Entrepreneur’s Prenup you will always have the partnership guidance you need, regardless of where you are in your partnership process.
