Inside Track: She stands up for small business

Attorney Nichole Sadek learns from her clients as she employs innovative ways to bolster their success.
Inside Track: She stands up for small business
Nichole Sadek started as an associate attorney at Eardley Law in Rockford and from there moved to Innovative Law Group in Holland, where she learned about small business law. <strong> Courtesy Nichole Sadek </strong>

Attorney, wife, mother and business owner Nichole Sadek has done it all. Now she is running her own law firm, where she’s focusing on meeting the varied needs of small businesses.

And while Sadek feels she’s where she needs to be, her focus wasn’t always on representing small business.

“I didn’t really plan on being a lawyer,” Sadek said, laughing. “That’s a little bit of a turn to the story, I suppose. I originally wanted to be in federal law enforcement and actually went to law school with that goal in mind.

“As a kid (in my) teenage years I was pretty obsessed with criminal profiling, (and) those TV shows. I’ve always been a little bit of a true crime fanatic. I really thought that’s what I wanted to do, so that’s what I went to school for.”

After earning an associate of arts at Henry Ford College (then Henry Ford Community College) in Dearborn, Sadek went on to study for a bachelor’s degree in psychology and criminal justice at Grand Valley State University.

With the goal of entering the federal law enforcement arena, Sadek was directed by a mentor to earn a law degree to boost her job options. So, in 2013, she started earning a Juris Doctor from the Michigan State University (MSU) College of Law.

“I thought, and still think, it’s so fascinating to understand why people do the things that they do,” she said. “So that’s where I started to focus my education. Once I was in law school though, I realized I don’t really know if it’s the horrendous nature of what people do that’s so interesting as much as it is the puzzle — trying to strategize and solve a puzzle. And that’s what being a lawyer is all about, taking what you have and trying to figure out how to get to where you need to go.”

NICHOLE SADEK
Organization:
Sadek Law PLC
Position: Founder
Age: 33
Birthplace: Gladwin
Residence: Grand Rapids
Family: Husband, three children
Business/Community Involvement: Finance committee member for Grow; board member, Turning Pointe School of Dance; Ada Bible Church volunteer in women’s ministry
Biggest Career Break: Refocusing her firm in 2021 “That refocus I think really was probably the biggest career trajectory change that I had had up until this point. Since then, things have continued to grow, but not like that spike.”

While at MSU, Sadek realized she had a knack for the law profession.

After she was licensed, she took a job at a plaintiff’s law firm, learning about the legal process while attending law school and gaining the hands-on experience that she needed to kick-start her career.

When she graduated in 2016, she had “no idea” what kind of law she wanted to practice.

She started as an associate attorney at Eardley Law in Rockford and from there moved to Innovative Law Group in Holland, where she learned about small business law.

During her time at Innovative, Sadek started to see some flaws in how small businesses were handled legally — unique needs that startups and small businesses had that were overlooked by the legal field. And so, as a self-proclaimed daughter of “do-it-yourselfers” and entrepreneurs, she set out to provide an alternative, launching her own firm in 2019.

“I didn’t expect to be where I am when I started out as a young attorney,” Sadek said. “But when you see something broken, you try to fix it. The legal system as a whole is very good at doing the same thing the same way. It is slow to change and when change does occur, it is small and low-risk. I was sick of the lack of attorneys and legal business models that suited small businesses and startups. It was clear that startups, most of the time, just didn’t get legal help. So, I started my own business to change that.”

People who are trying to bootstrap a small business or looking into making their side gig a full-time moneymaker are looking to save funds, and often don’t have the legal fees needed to hire an attorney while they launch their business. This was the demographic Sadek had a heart for and she set out to meet their needs and work with their constraints.

“When I started my firm that was the market I was going after because there wasn’t anybody else competing for those people, there was nobody that was really catering to what those people needed,” she said. “So, I started my business with that intention and did a couple of things a little bit different than any law firms that I know about.

“My firm was built on providing free education to entrepreneurs about what they actually need from a legal standpoint. This seemed to help quite a bit because a lot of the lack of legal aid was due to entrepreneurs not knowing what they didn’t know and being afraid to consult with an attorney on basic business law questions because of their fear of cost.”

Sadek said her firm is built on offering flat fees and alternative billing options. Previously, clients would have to choose between Legal Zoom (no legal advice, but cheap templates) or a standard law firm that tailored legal advice, but with high hourly rates/uncertain billing.

“So, I tried to find something in the middle. I offer flat fees on nearly all of my legal services. I quote a price, that’s all they pay.”

Another way Sadek helped make legal services affordable for small businesses was adding a subscription option for them. The IP Legal Subscription, as it is labeled on her website, starts at $200 monthly and offers consulting services, document review and quarterly reviews on an ongoing basis.

“My intention was just to be able to keep the lines of communication open,” she said of her inspiration to start a subscription option. “The first thing I heard with a lot of these people who were declining legal services, was that they didn’t even want to call an attorney and ask them a question, even if it was an attorney they trusted and had worked with, because they didn’t want to be charged for the question. So, I started that with the hope that it would give people the opportunity and a fear-free zone to call me and ask me a question.

“The goal was to create a relationship with startups based on open communication, trust and knowledge.”

So far, this subscription option has proven to be a success. Sadek said her subscription services are almost at capacity, and she may have to cap membership soon.

“I think it’s a need that people really had in that market,” she said.

Right now, Sadek Law is outgrowing itself, and Sadek is looking to add to her team soon to keep up.

Since Sadek Law started in 2019, the small business boom that followed the disruption of COVID-19 has been good for her, and she is finding overwhelming need for her services. Additionally, Sadek said branching out on her own and starting a firm has given her a unique perspective to bring to her work with small businesses, as she now has some experience in their shoes.

“It’s funny because I have been doing business law for quite some time now, so (I’m) always talking to business owners about the things that they should do with running their own business. But it wasn’t until I went out on my own that I was like, oh my gosh, this is what it’s actually like,” she said. “Legal advice is one thing, but when you’re actually experiencing operating your own company, you can really identify with people a lot better than you could when you were just employed as an attorney.

“All of the problems that they have, I’m like, oh my gosh, I have that problem, I have that exact problem. I think that’s another thing that has helped me with my clients. I can relate, right? I know exactly what it’s like to try to get something up and running. And so, I’ve learned a ton just from them and from working with people who do this and just trying to figure out how to keep my own business operational. I actually understand my clients in a way that I probably didn’t before.”

But with the hard work and growth that got her here, Sadek found she struggled to find those clients she originally set out to serve. She took a year in 2021 to refocus her business, only taking on clients she wanted to work with and seeing how that affected her firm. She put her whole heart into Sadek Law that year, pushing herself to hit new ceilings. Sadek said the refocus was a success and has helped her firm take off and grow in ways she never thought possible.

In 2023, Sadek is nurturing strong relationships between herself and her clients and leaning into their needs, giving her a wide client base that she is proud to oversee.

“I have businesses that have been in business for a while and they’re pretty secure but the startups can really range. You have some people who have really prepared and they have cash ready to invest in this thing and they’re ready to go and they’re open to the cost, to the education, they just want to do it. And then you have people coming in who are totally unprepared and they’re calling me (asking) what is an LLC? And that’s a really big range of people, but they both need help.

“They just are coming from a completely different place, so that’s a challenge. And I think a lot of law firms in particular will just pass over those unprepared ones because they’re too much work. You have to educate them from the ground up. But those are also the people that I get along with because they’re very brave and spontaneous and they’re kind of fun people to hang out with. So, I like those clients. They’re just more work and you just have to be able to find a way to serve them that’s not going to scare them away. And so that’s the part that I do differently and that’s the group that I think I’m able to serve that maybe others can’t get to or won’t spend the time on.”

In addition to growing the “baby” that is her own firm, Sadek is a wife and a mother of three who enjoys hiking and being outdoors with her family. She also volunteers at Ada Bible Church’s women’s ministry and serves as a board member for Turning Pointe School of Dance, and on the finance committee of Grow, which keeps her busy in her spare time.

Sadek looks forward to new growth this year and plans to expand as she is able. But for now, she is proud to look back on how far she has come.

“The people that I saw (who) had no place to go for legal help now have someone to turn to. I am proud of that, more than anything else in my business.”

This story can be found in the Feb. 20 issue of the Grand Rapids Business Journal. To get more stories like this delivered to your mailbox, subscribe here.