Meet Nichole Sadek of Sadek Law

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nichole Sadek. 

Hi Nichole, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born in a small town in Michigan. My father has owned his own business for years, with my mother working alongside him, so I grew up in this DIY attitude. My parents built their own house (with their own hands), have a relatively self-sustaining Aquaponic garden that grows fresh fruits and vegetables all year, my dad has built countless machines or gadgets to make their life easier, and my mom runs her own event planning business. So, from the time I was just little I remember being told if I wanted to do something: “you try it,” or “figure it out,” or “if they can do it, you can do it.” 

Obviously, this impacted my future career goals, although I didn’t realize that until much later. I hadn’t planned on being an attorney. I majored in psychology and criminal justice at Grand Valley. Most of my time in undergrad was spent competing with the women’s rowing team, which only further ingrained both independence and desire to always be improving myself. I wanted to do something meaningful and important. My eyes were initially set on federal law enforcement, which is how I ended up in law school. I was told by several mentors that I could get in easier with a JD. Once in law school, though, I found I enjoyed studying the law. I liked both the certainty of the rules, but also, the learned skill of using the facts to meet an end important to those you are counseling. I decided being a lawyer was worth a shot. 

I interned at the federal public defender, as well as a public policy organization in Virginia, then landed a job at a small but feisty law firm in Rockford, MI. They practiced primarily plaintiff civil litigation, from medical malpractice to civil rights. It was a great learning experience and exhilarating. But every client was coming to you on the worst day of their life and needed you to do your best to fix it. It was emotionally draining, even if it was fulfilling. So, I switched gears to business law at another firm and found, finally, something I loved. In retrospect, it should have been obvious, but I didn’t realize it until I was in it, that entrepreneurs were who I’d like to spend my time with. 

I realized relatively quickly that there was a bit of a gap in the market, though. Entrepreneurs (my people) were not getting legal help until it was too late (if at all). The firms were stuck in offering services at high retainers or hourly rates because lawyers had to hit billable hour quotas. Tracking time at a law firm was literally one of my least favorite tasks to accomplish, ever. It seemed so counterproductive. I didn’t like it. It took a bunch of time. The clients hated it. No one would even talk to a business owner without some money down and the clock starting. That DIY attitude in entrepreneurs was understandably the attitude that won out, even in preparing legal documentation and negotiating disputes – there was no place in our legal market for them. I wanted to find a way to serve those people. 

So, like a crazy person, I just decided to start my own firm (in the fall of 2019 of course…) How hard could it be, right? If other people can do it, so can I, right? What could possibly go wrong in 2020? 

Thus, Sadek Law was born. I had one goal: do things better. 

I am proud of what I’ve created. It’s new and different and it meets the needs of the people I love to work with. But I don’t think I would have been able to build this without that default “let me try that” attitude. I also think that entrepreneur spirit within me is what lead me to the law and practice I now run. I love entrepreneurs. I understand them because I am one. I want to make the world better. I want to fix the problems I see, if I can, by finding new ways to do things. I don’t want to do things the way they’ve always been done because I don’t know another way. 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
My biggest challenge was finding a way to help people, charge people, and still make a living. I was doing something I had never seen in operation in a law firm before. It’s terrifying to do something differently in a field where every firm is run exactly the same. There must be a reason they do it that way right? If I did something different, would I fail? Would I not make any money? 

I also started my business only months before a pandemic. So, like all of my new clients, I was trying to figure out what in the heck I was supposed to do in our changing world. This challenge, though, was more of a blessing in disguise. Because I owned a business myself and was navigating the same issues for my own practice, I was literally in my clients’ shoes. I realized then that giving legal advice to businesses was NOT the same as understanding how to run a business. The knowledge I gained from that challenge has paid dividends in my client relationships and personal growth. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Sadek Law is a law firm practicing primarily in business and intellectual property law. I service all kinds of businesses, mostly small to medium-sized, but I do it differently that a traditional law firm. I wanted to be accessible virtually and mobile. My fees are set and disclosed on my website. I offer free consultations to all first-time clients. Nearly everything is flat fee. 

I found right away that I could reach the under-served small businesses by focusing on two things: more education and flat fees. 

Small businesses and startups needed to first know what they don’t know, ideally without spending a fortune finding out what they don’t know. I learned quickly, the more education I gave upfront, the more I was able to overcome the conception that entrepreneurs could or should do it on their own. The more information I could give for free, the more value the self-reliant of the world placed in professional expertise. I found myself in a community of active entrepreneurs that were beginning to realize that they needed a community of other entrepreneurs to help each other. I thrived in women-owned business groups and with anyone else who was willing to change their fee structure to work with startups or small businesses. 

Second, entrepreneurs needed to be able to access legal advice and legal services at a guaranteed rate, so they could budget accordingly along with their other start-up costs. Flat fees are not new in the legal world, but they are somewhat under-utilized. However, one addition that IS new to the legal world is the legal subscription service I launched at the beginning of 2021. The subscription attempts to bridge the gap between a website like Legal Zoom (with low-cost templates, but no ongoing legal assistance) and a law firm (with ongoing legal assistance the cost of which was either too high or too uncertain). The subscription service is a small fee per month, whereby Sadek law will provide free consultations, free contract review on a monthly basis, and quarterly check-ins. The goal was to be accessible to small businesses on the front end at a set cost so that I could help solve problems before they became giant, expensive legal disputes. 

It appears to have worked. I grew really fast over 2021 and into this year. I’ve helped start hundreds of businesses and helped even more with additional legal work, like contracts, employment, trademark, copyright, and collections, as they grow. We’ve just opened up a new office on the north side of town (official launch date is February 28) and will be looking to add to the team in the next year or so. I’m really proud of the unique kind of firm I run. I’m proud of the relationships I’ve made with other small businesses in our community. I feel like I get to be a small part of helping our community flourish. 

How do you think luck played a role in your success?
In one major way: one of my main changes was that I wanted to be able to offer services almost completely virtually. I didn’t want to bog people down with actual paper and be mailing things all over the place. I wanted to be agile, mobile, and virtual. Luckily, I wanted to do all of that exactly 5 months before everyone else on the whole planet was forced to be all of those things. While I knew a lot of business owners would like virtual meetings and email correspondence instead of conference rooms, I wasn’t sure I would be able to convince everyone. I didn’t have to. COVID-19 did that for me. Now, I get to have my virtual world without having to push it on anyone. 

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.sadeklawplc.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sadeklawplc
• Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sadeklawplc

Image Credits
Deb Kalsbeek
FemPro Society