I advise founders and leadership teams on legal and commercial matters, and help advance important company initiatives. My work combines legal training with firsthand experience building and operating a multi-location business.
Support can be scoped around recurring legal needs, a defined business initiative, or a combination of both.
Ongoing, practical counsel for companies that need an experienced legal partner before a full-time hire makes sense.
Focused analysis and execution support for a consequential decision or growth initiative—not a generic strategy deck.
Practical assessment and pilot design for repeatable processes where existing AI or automation tools may help.
I bring legal analysis together with the perspective of a founder accountable for business outcomes.
I earned my J.D. at Emory Law, edited the Emory Law Journal, served as a federal judicial clerk, and practiced commercial litigation. In 2015, I founded Highland Yoga and grew it from one Atlanta studio into a regional, multi-location business. My responsibilities included market expansion, real estate and leases, pricing, brand, hiring, partnerships, and operating systems.
I also created and sold Training Collective, a consumer fitness marketplace. That experience informs how I approach legal work: advice should account for commercial objectives, available resources, and the practical demands of implementation.
I currently provide fractional in-house counsel support to a startup and am building a practice around practical legal advice, important business decisions, and thoughtful workflow design.
My perspective comes from evaluating and introducing technology inside an operating business. I help teams map a repeatable process, identify a bounded opportunity, and plan a carefully supervised pilot. This is advisory and pilot design—not custom model engineering or unattended decision-making.
If a project needs substantial software engineering or production integrations, that work should be separately scoped with a qualified technical partner.
For legal-adjacent workflows, legal judgment and accountability stay with people.
Engagements can be ongoing legal support, a defined strategy project, or a workflow assessment. Scope, availability, deliverables, and fees are agreed up front.
Start with the company, the issue, and what a useful outcome would look like. Please avoid sending confidential details before an engagement is established.
For legal work, conflicts and authorized scope are confirmed before a written engagement agreement. Strategy and workflow projects use a defined scope and deliverables.
Work proceeds against agreed priorities, with clear communication about open questions, decisions, and next steps.
I work with founders and growing teams that need practical legal support, help with a consequential business decision, or a thoughtful review of a recurring workflow. We can use an initial conversation to determine whether the need and scope are a fit.
I am admitted in Georgia. Legal services are limited to matters I am authorized and competent to handle. We confirm jurisdiction and scope before legal work begins; matters requiring specialized or additional counsel can be separately scoped or referred.
Work may be structured as ongoing monthly counsel or as a defined strategy or workflow project. Scope, availability, deliverables, timing, and fees are agreed in writing before work begins.
It can include process mapping, use-case selection, human-review and escalation design, and a plan for testing a limited pilot with appropriate tools. It is not custom model engineering or unattended legal decision-making; technical implementation beyond the agreed scope should involve a qualified technical partner.
No. An email or introductory conversation does not create an attorney-client relationship. Please do not send confidential information before conflicts are checked and a written engagement agreement is in place.
Share a few general details about your company, the kind of support you are seeking, and your timing. I’ll follow up to determine whether a conversation makes sense.
Submitting opens a draft in your email app; this website does not send or store your message. Review the draft and send it when ready. Prefer direct email? elspeth.brotherton@gmail.com