About Coco Soodek
BUSINESS LAWYER
Coco is a corporate lawyer with 20 years’ experience, creating companies and doing deals. She helps business people around the world identify risk and adopt strategies to manage it, negotiate and close deals, and manage all aspects of their businesses. Coco is oddly passionate about writing contracts that clearly map the business deal and reduce exposure to liability. She works in a wide range of industries including art, digital media, events, entertainment, advertising, e-commerce, manufacturing, trucking, warehousing, renewable energy, hotel development, consumer products, apparel, restaurants, firearms and retail.
Coco has also invented a legal specialty called “Business Marriage Counseling,” in which she works with feuding business owners either to repair relationships among business owners or to gently break their business apart.
Coco is deeply committed to her life as a business lawyer. Downtown, she works with clients at the great law firm, Bryan Cave LLP, where she was a partner, and is now Of Counsel and Co-Leader of the Art Law Practice. Uptown, Coco works with smaller companies and entrepreneurs at Seasongood Law, Inc., a law firm she founded to provide contracts, counseling and classes to small businesspeople who don’t yet need or qualify for the fire power of a full service law firm. In both firms, Coco is passionate about helping her clients manage risk and make money.
BUSINESS ADVISOR
Coco founded and leads Profit and Laws, Inc., a business advisory firm that coaches small business owners in starting and running their businesses, as well as big companies marketing to them. Profit and Laws, Inc. partners with experts in the fields of finance, economics, law, marketing, insurance, real estate, product development and general business services to empower entrepreneurs at all levels through incisive, empathetic coaching, immersive educational experiences and how-to guides for business. As a business advisor, Coco uses creativity, curiosity, sophistication and empathy to help clients reengineer their business strategies, enabling them to focus on what they love to do and to make money from it.
SPEAKER
Coco is frequently called on to speak to entrepreneurs on how to start, run and prosper from business. She produces the “Birth to Buyout” bootcamps, a series showing business people the laws and legal obligations they must understand. Coco provides Birth to Buyout bootcamps throughout the country, customizing the content to meet the needs and interests of the audience. In addition, Coco frequently speaks on the following topics:
- 10 Reasons Why We Must Create Entrepreneurs
- 15 Questions to Discover the Laws that Govern Your Business
- How to Work Out Your Deal with Your Partners and Investors
- How to Set Up A Company
- Getting the Rights
- A variety of topics in business law
MEDIA
Coco hosted her own nationally syndicated radio show, “Coco Soodek Live,” on the Lifestyle Talk Radio Network, a terrestrial radio network reaching over 20 major markets. Coco covered a mix of business, entrepreneurship, politics and law, and takes numerous callers seeking guidance for their small businesses. She frequently appears on the Fox News Justice with Janine Pirro show and other programs representing the liberal viewpoint.
WRITER
Coco wrote Birth to Buyout: Law for the Life Cycle of Your Business, the bestselling guide to business law for the entrepreneur. In Birth to Buyout, Coco wraps clear-eyed lessons on business law inside a fictional story about two emerging entrepreneurs named Hap and Hazard, and their corporate lawyer, Gravity. She blogs about business, law and entrepreneurship at http://www.profitandlaws.com and about politics at http://www.cocosoodek.com.
SERVICE
Coco serves on a number of civic and philanthropic boards, including Midwest Board of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute, a prominent scientific research institute in Israel, and on the board of the Katherine Soodek Foundation. Coco was named a “40 Under 40” in Crain’s Chicago Business. She is honored to be a Fellow to the American Bar Association. Coco was chosen to serve as an At-Large Delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention. She has been admitted to practice law in Illinois since 1997 immediately following her graduation from Northwestern University School of Law.
Read Articles by Coco
- Coco’s Blog
- Coco’s Tweets
- Crains New York “5 Signs You’re Making a Bad Deal”
- Birth to Buyout: Law for the Life Cycle of Your Business (2013)
- Crains Chicago “ObamaCare Will Ignite Your Startup Life”
- Art Law Team for Bryan Cave.
Read Articles Featuring Coco
- Glass Ceiling Lawyer Coco Soodek: Find Ways to Help Build the World
- Bloomberg News – Gay Lawyers Come Out as Clients Demand More Diversity
- Crains Chicago 40 Under Forty
- Klein Artist Works Q&A With Coco Soodek
- Huffington Post Stolen Art Can Be Burden Without Connections
- Crains New York New Book Makes Business Law Real by Adding Dose of Fiction
- Legal News Art Law Team Can Benefit Firm
- Chicago Gay History Project Video Interviews with Coco and Roxanne Saylor
- One amicus brief gets rare warm reception from Posner
CONTACT COCO
If you want to talk to Coco, email her at coco@profitandlaws.com or contact her at LinkedIn.