Freeman Lovell was formed around a question from its founding partners, Josh Freeman and Steve Lovell: how might a law firm operate if it were designed specifically around the needs, constraints, and realities of entrepreneurs? According to Freeman, the firm’s Founding Partner, that question emerged from years of working within conventional legal structures while advising growing businesses through complex transactions and operational decisions. As business and real estate lawyers, the firm works closely with owners, navigating everything from entity formation and operational growth to property acquisition, development, and transition planning.
Before launching Freeman Lovell, Freeman spent years building a transactional and corporate practice that exposed him to both the opportunities and limitations of existing law firm environments. From his perspective, those years provided the flexibility to reflect on how he wanted to practice law and how legal services could be structured to better support business owners over time. “I had the flexibility to decide how I wanted to practice law,” Freeman explains. “That experience ultimately shaped my thinking around building a firm designed with intention and clarity.”
Freeman Lovell was established in 2016 with a deliberately lean and remote-first structure, well before such models became commonplace. Freeman explains the firm’s operating philosophy as one rooted in autonomy and intentional design. The firm was structured around a clear distinction between essential infrastructure and optional resources, an approach Freeman says supports efficiency while preserving depth of expertise. “There are certain things that are must-haves,” he says, “and being clear about those priorities helps keep the focus on the work itself.”
From Freeman’s perspective, this structure allows the firm to focus its resources where they matter most: legal strategy, process refinement, and the adoption of tools that support both attorneys and clients. The firm, he explains, prioritizes technologies that improve accuracy, collaboration, and responsiveness rather than investing in physical trappings that add cost without improving outcomes. That philosophy, according to Freeman, reflects the same operational discipline many of the firm’s clients apply to their own businesses.
The firm’s client base is largely composed of small to mid-sized business owners and entrepreneurs navigating growth, restructuring, or transition. “For many of those clients, legal questions are not confined to corporate governance alone, but extend into matters related to commercial real estate, tax, securities, trademarks and intellectual property, and employment and workforce compliance,” Freeman says. He notes that this segment is often underserved, falling between firms built for individual matters and those structured around large corporate clients. “We wanted to create a practice that was designed for the types of issues entrepreneurs actually face,” he says, “including the importance of depth, continuity, and practical guidance over transactional volume.”
In Freeman’s view, working closely with business owners requires understanding not only legal frameworks but also how companies evolve over time. That perspective informs the firm’s approach to mergers, acquisitions, and internal structuring, where preparation and foresight often shape outcomes long before a transaction formally begins. According to Freeman, legal decisions made early can significantly influence flexibility later, particularly when companies reach inflection points.
That long-term orientation also connects to Freeman’s involvement in a second venture, Exit Engine, which he co-founded to address challenges he observed while advising clients approaching potential exits. While Freeman Lovell focuses on legal strategy and execution, Exit Engine is designed to help business owners assess readiness, structure operations, and understand value drivers well before a sale becomes imminent. “What we saw repeatedly were owners who had built strong businesses but had not planned for the transition,” Freeman explains. From his perspective, preparation changes the nature of decision-making when opportunities arise.
Although distinct, the two ventures reflect a shared philosophy: that clarity, structure, and advance planning tend to create better outcomes than reactive decision-making. Freeman emphasizes that Exit Engine is not about accelerating exits, but about helping owners regain control over timing and options. “If you understand how value is created and measured,” he says, “you can make choices earlier that preserve flexibility later.”
As Freeman Lovell approaches its tenth year in operation, Freeman sees the firm as an ongoing experiment in alignment between attorneys and clients, structure and strategy, legal rigor and business practicality. Rather than positioning the firm as a departure from the legal profession, he frames it as an evolution informed by firsthand experience. “The goal was never to build something flashy,” Freeman says. “It was to build something that works, for the lawyers doing the work and for the businesses relying on it.”
