When I first moved to US I would happily tell anyone who asked that I worked as a lawyer, litigating tricky court cases and negotiating exciting transactions. But I quickly learnt that the occupation “lawyer” wasn’t exactly something to be very proud of in the US. So, when someone asked what I did for a living, I would start answering in a slightly different way: “I help companies take less risks, and make more money”.
Why is it that lawyers in the US are so sceptically seen upon? Why do lawyers end up in the lower tier – together with car sellers and TV reporters -when people get asked about what profession they think has the lowest work ethics?
One thing we have noticed, is that lawyers can be rather inaccessible here in the US – first, they can be very hard to get hold of, at least when you’re a tiny company from the cold North, and once you get they’re attention it’s hard to know what to ask, and when they answer your questions, it’s impossible to understand what their advice actually means in practice. And of course, you wouldn’t dream of asking them to clarify, considering their hourly rates. The Christmas greetings above, which I personally received, pictures clearly the way we lawyers are seen upon: always complicating things, with words, words and even more words!
In October 2017, Sara, Olivia and I launched the website we had been talking about for a while, uslawfornordics.com. (I know, it’s a super long but yet pretty descriptive domain name, just like a lawyer would want it.) Our goal was to do something that would make legal help more accessible, even for a startup who didn’t have either the time nor the money to dive deep into the legal maze of US jurisdiction.
Since the launch, we have published 15 blog posts on different topics that are relevant for anyone considering setting up shop in the US, we have done a trip to Sweden where we have met with Norrsken Foundation, Epicenter, SUP46 and other cool ventures to let them and their members know about us, we have done our weekly “Ask the Lawyer” sessions at the Nordic Innovation House every Tuesday, where we have talked to Nordic startups about everything from employment law and setting up a US company, to sales tax and IP protection, and we have made introductions between Nordic startups and our lawyer, VC, banking, insurance and other good friends in the SF/Bay Area.
We are extremely excited to have launched this website, and we are even more excited about 2018. We are planning for more blogs and Ask the Lawyer sessions of course, and in addition we will introduce the concept of “Lawyer Learns”, where we will invite our lawyer friends to give hands on advice on the topics covered in the blog posts. We hope you will join us for all this!
Thank you for your support during our first 2.5 months, and we look forward to seeing you again next year!
