Licensing Agreement Lawyers for Illinois

I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006 with a degree in Political Science, Finance, and Economics. I stayed around Champaign for law school and graduated in 2009. I then worked at a big law firm in downtown Chicago. It was boring, so I quit in early 2011. I thought that I could not be happy practicing law - I was wrong. After I quit the traditional law firm life, I began representing my own clients. I realize now that I love helping normal people, small business owners, and non-profits address a variety of legal issues. I hope to hear from you.

I am a solo-practitioner with a practice mostly consisting of serving as a fractional general counsel to growth stage companies. With a practical business background, I aim to bring real-world, economically driven solutions to my client's legal problems and pride myself on efficient yet effective work.

My name is Melissa “Mel” Green and I provide legal counsel to entrepreneurs, start-ups, and small businesses that is clear, concise, and focused on the practical impact of decisions. As trusted legal counsel, I proactively identify risks, and develop effective, practical solutions that protect my clients businesses, create positive outcomes, and help mitigate legal exposure. My areas of expertise include business formation, contract law/commercial transactions, healthcare law, and intellectual property. I also provide services as an outside general counsel or “fractional general counsel”. Prior to starting my own law firm, I spent the majority of my career in-house at large and small corporations, both for profit and not-for-profit, working with senior and executive management, in addition to other stakeholders at a variety of management levels. to proactively identify and address risks, mitigate legal exposure, streamline processes, lead persuasive negotiations that are integral to ensuring positive outcomes for the organization, and deliver hands-on, spectacular client service. There came a time when I realized that individuals and smaller entities were not receiving the same level of legal support and guidance as mid-size to large companies and as a result, individuals and small businesses were not growing and sustaining on the same level. I wanted to use my expertise to provide those that were underserved by the legal market with competent counsel at an affordable price. With the increasing number of new businesses, I knew that I could make a difference to those that needed legal guidance but were putting it off in fear of “Big Law” prices. I love to “partner” with my clients, get a deep understanding of their business, develop lasting professional relationships and watch them prosper. I want to find a way to help my clients maximize the reach, value and impact of their business. Services that I have provided over the course of my career: (i) reviewing, drafting and negotiating commercial agreements (leases, MSAs and SOWs, consulting services agreements, confidentiality agreements, SaaS agreements, coaching agreements, independent contractor agreements, coaching agreements, photographer agreements, waivers and releases, licensing agreements, etc.), (ii) business formation (operating agreements, written consents, bylaws, etc.), (iii) preparing policies and procedures for businesses in highly regulated industries, (iv) conducting federal trademark searches and filing trademark applications/preparing trademark opinion letters after conducting appropriate legal research, and (v) general business counsel.

Trusted legal counsel and business advisor to businesses and executive teams in the software, financial, and technology industries. Practice areas include commercial transactions, licensing, SaaS/PaaS/IaaS delivery models, software product development, regulatory compliance, new business formation, employment matters, and general corporate matters.

I am a skilled legal researcher and writer with a background in contract drafting and negotiation as well as litigation. I've served as an arbitrator for the past three years and have presided over nearly 400 binding arbitrations for an online dispute resolution platform. Additionally, I am a content writer and editor for the insurance division of LexisNexis. In my role as a contractor for LexisNexis, I research, draft, and edit high-quality legal reference tools on a variety of insurance topics for use by lawyers and insurance industry professionals.

I am a corporate business and securities attorney licensed in Illinois with more than a decade of legal experience holding both a J.D. and Master in Law in Taxation. I specialize in advising technology companies in the cryptocurrency space with regulatory compliance (eg. securities law, FinCen, and MSB rules) and cybersecurity matters (eg. GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA), licensing agreements (SaaS, End User Licensing Agreement, Master License Agreement and etc), brokerage agreements, vendor agreements, revenue share agreements, affiliate agreements, and other related business and technology contracts. Having served as both an outside and an in-house counsel, I have worked with many early stage and mid-size companies, including blockchain companies with issued tokens in the top 100 ranking. With a strong understanding of core business needs for cryptocurrency companies and the ability to translate business needs into legal requirements, I have successfully helped businesses in the cryptocurrency space establishing their contracts, meeting regulatory compliance requirements (SEC, FinCen), and negotiating contracts with partners and vendors.

Skilled attorney with particular experience in investigations, document review, corporategovernance, FCPA matters, real estate and regulatory matters, excels at providing sound adviseand savvy solutions while ensuring the highest level of professionalism and integrity.

Business, Real Estate, Tax, Estate Planning and Probate attorney with over 20 years experience in private practice in Colorado. Currently owner/operator of John M. Vaughan, Attorney at Law solo practitioner located in Boulder, CO. My practice focuses on transactional matters only.

I have 20-plus years of experience as a corporate general counsel, for public and private corporations, domestic and international. I have acted as corporate secretary for a publicly-held corporation and have substantial experience in corporate finance, M&A, corporate governance, incorporations, corporate maintenance, complex transactions, corporate termination and restructuring, as well as numerous aspects of regulatory and financial due diligence. In my various corporate roles, I have routinely drafted complex corporate contracts and deal-related documents such as stock purchase agreements, option and warrant agreements, MSAs, SOWs, term sheets, joint venture agreements, tender agreements purchase and sale agreements, technology licensing agreements, vendor agreements, service agreements, IP and technology security agreements, NDAs, etc. and have managed from both a legal and business perspective many projects in the financial, technology, energy and venture capital fields.

My practice focuses on business and commercial litigation. I have worked with companies of all sizes from sole member LLCs to those in the Fortune 500. I've advised clients on mergers, equity issuances, commercial transactions, joint ventures, employment issues, and non-competition. I've also drafted and negotiated the underlying agreements for these transactions and more.