Meet Lisa Holter Ankel

Video Transcript

I’m a business and transaction lawyer. I work primarily with privately held companies. They could be closely held by a small group of people, owned by a family or a private fund, and I work through the life cycle of a business. So, if you think about the life cycle and the key events in it, that’s where I would get involved. Helping select the entity to be formed, forming the entity, raising money, bringing in other owners, bringing in employees maybe and sending them with ownership, significant sales of services and products or contracts with key vendors and also M and A, helping a business grow through acquisition or helping the founder when they sell their business. All of these events occur and I help my clients through all of them, and that could mean working with them on a single project one time, or on many projects over a number of years. I’ve worked with startups as well as established businesses, business owners and founders when they retire and sell their company, or private funds and companies when they acquire other businesses.

I love the variety of projects I get to work on as an attorney and working with so many smart people. I might help somebody form a company, I might help an established business when they’re growing and buying another company. They might have a dispute with a vendor and I can help them resolve it. It’s never the same from one day to the other. My clients are also business owners, people who founded their business or are running a business or lead up divisions and departments inside a business, and they are hardworking and smart and I’m always learning something from them. So, it’s very exciting. It’s fast-paced, I love that about it. I also love being out in the community and seeing my clients, whether I’m in the grocery store and see a product that one of them has made or am driving and pass a retail store, or see mudflaps on a truck with my client’s name on it. It’s a thrill to think that I am part of their team and help them grow their business.

Most of us at Avisen may have 20 to 30 years of practicing law at a large law firm and we have worked on large, sophisticated, complex transactions and really loved doing that, but we decided we wanted to practice in a more entrepreneurial and collaborative environment. There is no pressure to bring in bigger and bigger clients and push work down to associates. Our clients get to call and immediately talk to a senior attorney who can probably answer a lot of their questions in a single phone call. I can guarantee because I’ve done this for so many years, that I can do the work faster and better than any associate. We also have a very collaborative environment and work together as a team supporting our clients.

I think that it’s not just a great place for me to work, but it also delivers the best quality work in a cost-effective way to our clients. My perspective as an attorney, especially on transactions, is that anything that can go right should go right. That means not just being responsive and timely in getting back to people and providing quality legal service, but also being proactive and thinking about what’s coming up next in the transaction to keep it on track. With more than 25 years of experience working as an attorney, I know what to expect and anticipate and I bring that experience with me to every project I do for my clients.