THE TEAM
ABOUT US
At JNF Law, we help move your new business ideas from the dream world into reality. We love working with clients who are as passionate about their ideas as we are.
As a business law firm with a unique and refreshing business model, we are wholly committed to helping our startup, entrepreneur, and established business clients succeed.
While we are based in Portland Oregon - with a second location in Detroit Michigan soon - we serve clients and businesses throughout Oregon, the Northwest, and beyond.
Meet Otis
Treat Procurement Officer (TPO)
Otis is a three-year old Lagotto Ramagnolo, an Italian working dog often bred for truffle and mushroom hunting. Otis is an indispensable member of the firm, specializing in patrolling the kitchen, snack procurement, client satisfaction, and napping in the sun.
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Meet Joe
Attorney/Owner
Joe Fearey is the owner and founder of JNF Law. Joe is a licensed Oregon attorney, and has worked exclusively in the legal industry since 2011. Joe started his career as a Portland, Oregon business lawyer working for a 'traditional' law firm in downtown Portland, helping small business clients in all stages of the business lifecycle and corporate development, from formation through operation and sale.
Joe also has significant experience as an internal advisor to Portland-based businesses. In particular, Joe worked as in-house legal counsel for a local real estate company ranked in Portland Business Journal's list of 100 fastest-growing and largest private companies in Oregon and SW Washington. In this role Joe provided legal support to the entire company, with an emphasis on negotiating and advising the executive team on all significant transactions, ranging anywhere from $10 million to $500 in value. This included real estate sale and accusation transactions, joint-ventures, sales and acquisitions of business assets, and a range of contracts impacting operational divisions of the company.
Through these experiences, Joe has learned that the ability to understand and balance both business objectives and downstream risks (two often competing consideration) is a critical skill for any corporate lawyer to effectively provide legal counsel to businesses of all sizes. When advising small business and startup clients, Joe balances these competing considerations by taking the time to understand a clients short and long-term objections, in order to deliver advice and risk mitigation tools specifically designed to protect your business while keeping your company moving.
Seeing an opportunity to use his diverse experiences working as a corporate lawyer in Portland to help make legal resources accessible to small businesses, entrepreneurs, and individuals with limited budgets for startup costs legal expenses, Joe launched JNF Law in 2018.
Whether you need a business attorney to help set up your first business or require a corporate lawyer capable of negotiating a multi-million dollar deal for an established company, we can help.
Low Overhead = Less Attorney Fees
Unlike traditional law firms focused on volume, billable hours, and fancy office space, we place a high value on innovation, efficiency, and entrepreneurial thinking, allowing us to cut out all non-essential overhead. As a result, we are able to deliver the highest quality legal services quickly and efficiently, at a fair and affordable price.
As a law firm that genuinely enjoys watching our clients succeed, ensuring that our legal services remain accessible and affordable represents a core value that we take very seriously. We want our clients to spend less on attorney fees and more on building their business.
WE WORK WITH DREAMERS
JNF Law was created for those people who don't just dream big, but those who are bold enough to take the next step toward making that dream a tangible, real-world reality. As a lifelong entrepreneur myself, and someone who has worked through my own successful and unsuccessful business ventures, I appreciate that transforming a childhood dream into a tangible business reality is a terrifying prospect.
To help with that, I've created a streamlined, tech-savvy and paperless law firm dedicated entirely to helping entrepreneurs, small business owners and startups bring great ideas into reality. By cutting out unnecessary expenses and overhead, i'm able to provide cost-effective, accessible and predictable services that can make the initial leap just a little less terrifying.
AFFILIATIONS
WHY CHOOSE JNF LAW
Legal Zoom and other off-the-shelf legal services typically leave business owners with a misplaced sense of security. In reality, these forms are often so generic that they fail to effectively mitigate risks and limit potential liability in the event of an accident or dispute.
What seems like a cheap solution may create unexpected financial exposure, liability, and legal costs. This uncertainty is easily avoidable by using a local, experienced business attorney who is intimately familiar with your business and the transaction at hand, and can provide tailored guidance and tools for risk mitigation that provides the level of protection you need.
As a business owner myself, I understand that business decisions inherently involve a degree of risk. To provide effective legal service, a business lawyer must be able to anticipate and effectively mitigate that risk as much as possible. To accomplish this, any corporate lawyer must first have a deep understanding of the client's long and short-term business and transaction goals. With this approach, our clients receive individually-tailored tools and ongoing legal advice to keep your business moving forward.
Our Rates
Whenever possible, we offer per-project flat rate billing, so you know exactly how much you'll pay for our work.
For more complex transactions or projects of indefinite scope, work is billed on an hourly basis. Before we start any work on hourly projects, we will provide an honest estimate of the total cost and ensure that you understand the extent and scope of our involvement and representation in the project so that your able to make a well informed decisions whether it will be a worthwhile investment for you and your business.
Flat/Fixed Fee
Some examples of flat-fee projects include:
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New Business Startup Packages ($850 - $1,500)
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Federal Trademark Registration ($850 + USPTO Filing Fee)
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Basic non-negotiated Contract drafting/review ($375 - $800)
Hourly Fees
For transactions and work that is complex, unique, or of indefinite scope, will bill on an hourly basis. Our hourly attorney rate is $375 per hour, and paralegal work is billed at $150 per hour.
Some examples of hourly work projects include:
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Drafting, review, and negotiation of various contracts, including leases, employment agreements, independent contractor agreements, joint venture agreements, and nondisclosure/non-solicitation agreements
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Buy-outs of business partners and company dissolutions
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Drafting or negotiation of equity incentive plans / stock option plans