Nonprofit Law in a For-Profit Firm
Working with nonprofits (especially while repaying those pesky law school loans) is a dream for many young lawyers. Jeff Tenenbaum, the head of Venable's nonprofit organizations practice—the largest in the country—has made that a thriving reality: since he joined the practice 15 years ago, it's grown from about 200 active nonprofit clients each year to more than 600. What's the secret? By far the most significant factors have been delivering speaking presentations and writing articles, Jeff says. It's led to more and larger clients. Above, he's giving a webinar on nonprofit tax issues for GuideStar last week that brought in almost 1,000 participants. (It took us three years just to get that many hits on our video of a cat reading Farnsworth on Contracts.)
Social media and the Internet have been a big boon. Between a YouTube channel with the practice's webinars, and churning out more articles on nonprofit legal issues than any other firm, Venable's often the first to come up in an online search, Jeff says. He often gets calls from folks who found them online, or referrals from other big law lawyers who saw or read something they did. It's not new for him—he wrote about 15 articles as a first-year associate, and has never slowed his pace. TV exposure isn't bad either, like this DC CBS sports reporter on Jeff's balcony interviewing him for a story about the NCAA's tax-exempt status.
