Matt Johnston is a small business lawyer working with businesses that have fewer than 50 employees. His clients range from one-person consulting/coaching practices to businesses in the creative industry, trades, and medical practices.
He provides practical, actionable legal advice with a focus on what a business owner needs to know to make decisions and be legally compliant. This includes setting up and closing down businesses, buying and selling businesses, and helping businesses navigate all the twists and turns that are present in the regulations that govern how they operate.
Law is Matt’s third career after being in the Navy and working as a lobbyist in Washington, DC.
Extracurriculars
Matt loves live music, and his preferred birthday present is concert tickets (tickets to a soccer game are a close second). He’s also a part-owner of a record label, although he cannot play a single instrument himself.
Why we love Matt
Matt’s commitment to bringing accessible legal services to small businesses is inspiring. His unconventional approach to practicing law and his passion for serving his clients in a way that truly benefits them, makes him one of a kind. Combined with his dedication to a balanced life through prioritizing family, friends, and hobbies as well as his profession, Matt embodies many values of the Cowork Frederick community.
Q&A with Matt
How did you become a lawyer?
I became a lawyer because I like to solve problems. The beauty of the practice of law is that you can work on so many different problems of differing scales. I choose to practice on the personal level, working directly with business owners, a group of people who generally don’t have access to consistent legal representation or advice. The hardest part of being a lawyer in this field is realizing that your clients need options with some analysis of second and third-order consequences, but they don’t need a novel-length amount of advice.
What inspires you and keeps you going?
I fundamentally believe in the power of small businesses to change lives. It is not just about the owners (although generally their lives change as a result of ownership), it is about the tiny and not-so-tiny contributions to the local community and the impact upward in society. But small business owners are among the roughly 60% of Americans who cannot afford consistent legal representation. When I formed my firm, my goal was to do what I can to keep overhead low so I can charge fees that a small business owner can afford.
Cowork Frederick members tend to be a little unconventional. How does that apply to you?
One client called me the least “lawyer-y” lawyer they ever met. I cannot stand the “airs” and “smugness” of many members of my profession. Too many lawyers are all about the “image” of being a lawyer: the fancy office, the mahogany conference table, the expensive suits. That is not to say they don’t have substance behind them, but you have to dig through layers. I would rather just focus on the substance of what I do, which is to advise business owners.
Which of the guiding values defined by Cowork Frederick members speaks to you?
BALANCE is key. For the vast majority of my adult life, things have not been in balance. Sometimes I was too focused on career, sometimes too much on family or personal matters. I sacrificed all the time in one aspect or another. And I was never, ever at peace even though I was, by most definitions, pretty successful and often happy. But it has taken a long time to realize that happiness without peace of mind, body and spirit is not really happiness, but the trappings of happiness.
Find balance, find something that is not your job/career and put at least 50% of the energy you put into your job into that “thing” whether that thing is obscure Russian jazz or Peruvian art. I believe your job/career is what you do to pay for the other parts of your life.
I love being a lawyer, don’t get me wrong, but I love my wife, and family, and soccer, and live music, and wine, and all the other things that make me a person separate and apart from the method I use to earn money.
What’s a significant business-related mistake you’ve made, and what did you learn from it?
Early on in my law career, on my own, I still equated time with money. I worshipped at the altar of the billable hour. But when people are buying my services, they are buying knowledge and experience, and that is separate and apart from time. Today, most of my work is done on a flat fee basis for a specific work product. The fees I charge represent the knowledge and experience I provide, which is different than my time.
For business owners, it is important to understand that there may be a difference between what you are selling and what your customers are buying. When you figure out what that difference is, you will have a much better chance to sell what your customer is buying at a higher price than you thought. Your value is not time based.
Why Cowork Frederick?
When I first started my own firm, I needed a place to work that was not at home since I had young children. But I also needed to be around humans a bit. I also wanted a place that could be “laid back” professionally; a place to meet clients and meet people.
Today, I am not in as much as I used to be, and things have changed as they do, but it is nice to know that I am still welcome back.
For those who want to learn more, how can you be reached?