Today marks Gutwein Law's fifth birthday, and we couldn't be more excited! It's been an unbelievable five years and we're incredibly happy to reflect on the ways we've grown. To help us celebrate this milestone, we wanted to take a look back at where we've been in the past five years, and where we heading in the next five.
So, why'd we start Gutwein Law? Well, as we always say, our firm exists for one reason – to help the best, most forward-thinking businesses in the world grow through high-level legal counsel. When we founded our firm, we knew right away we had a different perspective. As you may already know, we not only practice law on a daily basis, but business, too. A number of firm's team members own businesses themselves, so we know first-hand what our clients are after (sometimes before they do). We believe this approach, along with our other ideals, has strongly contributed to our success over the past five years.
So, what's happened since November 1, 2012? Here are a few highlights:
- We started the first day with five employees – two paralegals and three attorneys
- In December 2012, we added the litigation practice area
- We grew to nine employees by the end of our first year
- In April 2014, we added our intellectual property (IP) practice area
- We opened our Indianapolis office in September 2014
- By our second anniversary, we were up to 15 employees
- Last September, we added sports law to the services we offer
- We opened our first out-of-state office in November 2016 in Minneapolis, MN
- As of this moment, we have 25 employees (14 attorneys, 6 paralegals, 5 professional staff), have offices in three cities and two states, and practice in 12 areas of law
While we're proud of where we've gotten in five short years, we're not finished just yet. In fact, we have quite a few ideas floating around for the next five years and beyond. Here are just a few things we'd like to see happen:
- We want to continue to strengthen our existing team. Part of this means thinking about how we can better meet clients' needs and work to anticipate future needs. We not only want to be a few steps ahead of our clients, but we want to be thinking about their customers, too.
- We want to increase our resource depth in different practice areas, such as employment law, environmental law, and litigation. Going even further, we're also exploring a multi-disciplinary approach. As our clients' needs grow, what areas should we seek out? Think finance, merger and acquisition assistance, business consulting, leadership development, etc. Again, we're always looking for ways to exceed our clients' needs.
- We want to put focus on our lawyers' growth and success. Currently, our management team is working on a guide for our lawyers as they move through their careers. We want to provide them with a resource that lays out the steps to succeed not only with Gutwein Law, but within their communities and throughout their respective legal careers. A few of topics we aim address are community involvement, continuing education, networking and marketing, the client experience, work-life compatibility, and opportunities for professional growth. We hope this will act as a guide and coaching tool alike as we have new attorneys join the firm, or as our attorneys want to take on bigger roles within the firm.
- We also want to deepen our expertise in our five client profiles. Look, we know who we work well for and who we don’t, so we want to continue to concentrate on those profiles. These include: small- to medium-sized business presidents/owners; startup or emerging growth founders, IP portfolio clients, bankers, and estate planning clients. In order to help accomplish this, we're looking at teaming up with a private equity or real estate fund firms.
- We want to broaden our geographic reach. Where should we go next? Nashville? Chicago? Cincinnati? We don't have that pinned down just yet, but we have some ideas. Before we make a decision, we want to understand the markets and leaders in these areas. In other words, we want to be intentional in our next move in order to ensure we'll be as impactful as possible to new clients.
So, that's it – a few of our goals for 2022! But before we take on the next five years, we want to send a big THANK YOU to our clients who have joined us on this journey. We very much appreciate you putting trust in our firm. We also want to thank our families, staff, and colleagues for the support and dedication to helping us succeed.
Here’s to seeing what's next!
