Ep 43: Entrepreneurship, Business Law & Nearly $3 Billion in Deals with Nick McGrew, Esq.

What happens when your legal career doesn't go according to plan?

For Nick McGrew, that turned out to be a good thing.

Nick is the founding attorney of Polymath Legal PC, where his practice focuses on syndication, real estate, business, and transactional matters. Over the course of his career, he has helped clients with transactions involving nearly $3 billion in assets. He's also a tenured professor of business law, entrepreneur, legal content creator, and—yes—a magician.

But that career wasn't built according to some perfect roadmap.

Nick graduated from law school during the 2009 recession, struggled to find the type of legal work he wanted, started his firm at a young age, developed new practice areas based on what his clients needed, and eventually found his way back to one of his original goals: becoming a professor.

In this episode of The Whole Lawyer, Nick and Akeem discuss the realities of entrepreneurship, finding your niche as a lawyer, building systems, dealing with failure, developing relationships, creating content, and learning to stay flexible when your career doesn't follow the path you imagined.

One of Nick's biggest lessons after 16 years of practice is simple:

The things that feel ordinary today may be the exact things you dreamed about ten years ago.

And for law students and young lawyers trying to plan every step of their careers, Nick offers another important reminder: have a destination, but don't become married to the path that gets you there.

00:00 Intro
 03:14 If Nick Wasn't a Lawyer
 05:23 Why Business Law?
 07:45 Discovering Transactional Law
 08:39 Graduating During the 2009 Recession
 11:19 Finding His Legal Niche
 12:12 Building Expertise Through Repetition
 14:43 What Is Real Estate Syndication?
 16:38 What a Syndication Lawyer Actually Does
 18:25 A Day in Nick's Life
 20:28 Is Entrepreneurship Overrated?
 21:16 Starting a Law Firm at 25
 22:45 Why There's No Shame in Having a Job
 23:13 Why Entrepreneurship Works for Nick
 24:41 Becoming "Nick the Lawyer" Online
 26:49 Why Relationships Matter in Law
 27:40 "Relationships First"
 28:29 Adding Trademark Work to His Practice
 29:53 How Nick Handles Failure
 31:10 Bar Exam Horror Story
 37:15 Going to Law School at Pepperdine
 38:46 Why Nick Became a Professor
 39:44 Being Told He Couldn't Become a Professor
 40:50 How Setbacks Created His Career
 43:10 Don't Hold Too Tightly to Your Career Plan
 45:00 Being a Lawyer and Content Creator
 47:40 Are the Next Generation of Students Ready?
 49:37 Nearly $3 Billion in Deals
 50:36 Things Take Time
 52:22 Lawyers Aren't Magicians
 54:03 How Nick Became a Magician
 58:28 Nick's Networking Hack for Introverts
 59:53 Practicing Law in Los Angeles
 01:01:45 The Future of Polymath Legal
 01:03:39 Advice for Law Students
 01:05:13 Final Advice: Have a Destination, Not a Fixed Path