Justin Nahama, partner with FisherBroyles, is a former Marine JAG and federal prosecutor who built a thriving practice as a young partner at two of the biggest law firms in the country. These days, his cloud-based practice focuses on protecting disruptive technologies and concepts – especially veteran-owned businesses – as they change the world for the better, while allowing him to balance the needs of his family life as well. He sees the cloud-based platform as a model for the future.
Let’s start with your work with startups and venture capital clients. What are some of the typical struggles or weaknesses that they face?
Justin Nahama: I’ve really built my life around empowering and protecting other people, and when I transitioned out of the Marine Corps in 2012, a mentor suggested that I would really enjoy empowering and protecting companies. I was coaching lacrosse at the time, and the dad of one of the kids took me under his wing and suggested that I give it a shot – that I stand shoulder to shoulder with emerging companies to help protect their vision and help them leave their mark on the world. It wound up being incredible advice, and when I joined private practice, I really fell in love with protecting disruptive companies. And I got a head start, which was simply luck, because I was closely connected with the CrossFit community. I had served in the Marines with their first general counsel, competed as a CrossFit athlete on three occasions in the CrossFit Games, and they gave me some great opportunities to help protect that company and its community as they scaled from a handful of gyms to now more than 14,000 locations in 150 countries.
Through this international network of CrossFitters, I was meeting a lot of powerhouse entrepreneurs with the vision to change the world. So when you look at the bookends of entrepreneurship, where you have the scrappy entrepreneur and startup on one end and then a venture capital team looking for investments on the other, I had the unique opportunity to understand and work with leadership from both perspectives.
On the entrepreneur side, I believe it’s about helping them align their values, and build a growth framework with the right team, legal and business strategy. When I was at Mintz Levin, I built a veteran entrepreneur series, which was a free six-week startup series to teach military veterans who are now entrepreneurs what they really needed to set themselves up for success – a deeper dive than what they would find on Google or LegalZoom. I’d been seeing lot of the same themes with the startups I was working with, and I wanted to create a more efficient process to really help them level-up their planning without the big-firm price tag.
I continue to work with many veteran and civilian entrepreneurs, and I think that one of the things that I really enjoy the most is bridging the gap where the business and legal sides of things intersect. This involves figuring out what their vision is, challenging it, supporting it, refining it, and giving them the legal tools to reduce some of the friction there, whether it’s around intellectual property, employment, contracts, or even just telling their story. I do believe that, especially now, it’s more important than ever to have absolute alignment across the business’s teams, leadership and culture.
In terms of venture capital, one of the funds that I’m lucky enough to support is Fathom Ventures. Fathom started by my dear friend, Joe Musselman, who is also the founder of the Honor Foundation, which supports transitioning Navy SEALs and other special operators. They’re taking an entirely different approach to venture capital, focusing on the portfolio companies’ “TLC” – teams, leadership and culture – and when those pieces are aligned, and then you add the shield and sword when necessary from the legal perspective, it’s a wonderful recipe for success for disruptive technologies. I’m proud to be part of that process for entrepreneurs looking to change the world.
You’ve successfully represented clients in a broad range of types of litigation. What are some of the underlying themes you’ve identified, and what are some of your key approaches to conflict resolution?
The primary theme that has been helpful is really taking the time to understand the intersection of the business interests and the legal strategy when conflict arises. There are so many creative ways to prosecute or defend a case or an issue, but one of the things I’ve seen in these confrontational processes is that sometimes attorneys lose sight of how their approach is really advancing the ball for the client or how it is impacting them day-to-day. It’s different, obviously, if you’re defending against claims rather than prosecuting them. But I think absolutely transparent communication with the client is critical for clients who are interested in understanding the strategic options in terms of how to protect them at any particular moment.
If there’s one thing that’s been most helpful in resolving cases, it’s understanding the leverage points in the case – legally and financially. One of the things I underestimated as I transitioned from criminal to civil practice was that a crucial piece of resolving a case also involves the economic atmospherics with your opposing counsel. One way to get a case to settle very quickly is to get the law firm on the other side to realize that there’s not going to be a return in damages there, and then the attorney loses interest in the case very, very quickly. One thing I’m really proud of, which I think is one of the most attractive aspects of FisherBroyles’s model, is that I really thrive when I’m standing shoulder to shoulder with smaller companies as they go up against the bigger ones that they’re disrupting – and not allowing price points to make the playing field unequal. So I think that the creativity and efficiency and the platform that we have does create that level playing field where disruptive ideas and technologies can thrive. And when there’s a problem, we can address it as quickly as possible so that the company can move on and continue to impact the world.
Tell us about some of the work you’re doing to support veteran entrepreneurs and the pro bono work you’re doing to support Navy SEALs and World War II veterans.
After transitioning out of the Marine Corps, I really wanted to share the amazing resources I had at traditional big law firms with veterans and those continuing to serve. In addition to supporting veteran entrepreneurs through the startup series that I mentioned before, I wanted to find other ways to help veterans transition to their next adventure after their service. So, since its inception, I’ve been the pro bono general counsel for a nonprofit called the Honor Foundation.
I’m really proud of Joe Musselman, their founder and former CEO, as well as the new CEO, Matt Stevens, who has just been crushing it. We’ve put more than 725 special operators through the program. And in addition to the SEALs and other special operators, this also includes the men and women who serve with them – pilots, intelligence, bomb technicians, etc.. One of the founding principles of the Honor Foundation is helping these service members identify their “why” – why they were an outstanding Navy SEAL or Marine Raider or whatever it happened to be. That’s what they did, but it’s not who they are or why they were great at it. So we really teach them how to tell their story with some of the premier coaches in the world who absolutely love working with these special operators.
The Honor Foundation has three physical campuses, one virtual, and when the pandemic exploded, they were able to pivot very quickly, and seamlessly to a virtual platform, which I think is a true testament to the special operators’ ethos and their ability to leverage incomplete or inaccurate information, decide, communicate and act. The leadership from the Honor Foundation has also conducted private leadership lunch-and-learns, where they work with some of the top executives in the country and share lessons about how you can not only survive but actually thrive in spaces of incomplete information and adversity. I’ve been lucky enough to listen in, and each time, it’s emotional, and I get chills – hearing these real-world vignettes of experiences these men and women have had and how it relates to our ability, as professionals and families, to navigate these unprecedented circumstances with COVID. It’s been an absolute pleasure for me to help protect the Honor Foundation and its vision.
The other nonprofit that I’m really proud to support is the Best Defense Foundation, which was started by former NFL player Donnie Edwards and his wonderful wife, Kathryn. They bring veterans, primarily World War II veterans right now, back to the locations where they fought, sometimes with their grandkids, which is really, really powerful. When you see these folks who have done so much for us get to back to where they fought, with family, it’s really beautiful and touching. I am grateful that there are people like Donnie and Kathryn who realize how much these heroes have done for us and are willing to devote their time and energy and talents to give back to them.
What drew you to FisherBroyles?
I’d known about FisherBroyles for a while, and the thing that really drew me to them is their entrepreneurial platform. They have this thing down to a science – I don’t know how exactly they screen for the right value alignments for their teams, but they do it, and they do it well. As I got to know the different partners at the firm, I was so impressed with not just their experience but their philosophy. I think there’s a strong analogy to the special operators in the military that I support, where they are highly trained, nimble teams. This is not 500 service members rushing the berm. These are highly trained, small units that can scale up and down as needed for the mission. I find that the same is needed today in the practice of law, and with FisherBroyles you get to build your teams, you get to draw on talent from all over the world. These are folks who are battle-tested because they’ve done very well at the best traditional firms in the world or with government or in-house experience. You get their expertise, and you get to build these nimble teams to come in and protect your clients. There’s a huge benefit to clients, because while the bigger firms may have impressive resources, that doesn’t always directly serve the clients, in my opinion.
Providing a more cost-efficient platform with not only equal talent but also these specially built teams, with the right subject-matter experts and personalities, getting that kind of flow within the team, that was very attractive to me. Personally, I have been incredibly grateful for everything I’ve learned at traditional big firms, but I think that the world is changing, and has been for a while, and COVID really just exposed cracks that were already there, as opposed to creating them. FisherBroyles has been ahead of the curve anticipating these changes, and they have the systems in place to allow partners to thrive in an entrepreneurial platform that sets their clients up for success.
Is there anything we missed?
I’m a single parent, and I’m very active in my son’s and daughter’s lives, with coaching and school and everything else. My son, Caleb, is on the autism spectrum and has some additional care needs, and it’s always been extremely important for me to play a huge role in both of my kids’ lives. While the teams at my other firms have been supportive, I’ve always had this lingering fear that I wasn’t carrying my share of the pack or I was letting the team down by having to leave early. But at FisherBroyles, I knew immediately that it was going to be different. When I announced I was joining FisherBroyles, I published a letter sharing part of my journey with my son and talking about how I’m starting an autism-centric technology company called Spectrum Care Alliance to help families avoid the heartbreak and fear I’ve faced during my journey with Caleb. And the global head of litigation at FisherBroyles, Joel Ferdinand, reposted it right away. He did this before even really getting to know me, which I thought was a huge testament to the firm’s values and how they deal with real life. Yes, a law firm is a business, but the people behind it are the ones who make it successful. And I’ve met so many other parents at FisherBroyles who have had incredible experiences supporting their families while practicing law, thanks to the flexibility and lack of guilt that this firm provides. It’s life-changing for them, as it has been for me. I feel like this weight has been shed and I have more clarity and conviction than ever before in my professional journey.
Published August 25, 2020.
