Smart Business Magazine, December 2018

December 2018 Smart Business Cleveland 29 The Last Word Blockland is already a success because its engaged the community People are crossing paths who have never really done so before Im meeting people Ive never met and hearing perspectives I would never hear Weve really tried to make the process as inclusive as possible Anyone who emails me we involve them immediately and we ask them to attend our meetings In many ways its creating a new model for how to engage in our economic development initiatives here locally The one benefit of having a nongovernmental initiative is the speed at which you can execute Its not bureaucratic Like I said its open to anyone And also with someone like Moreno he and I share the same characteristic We both like to move We fly Emails at 1 or 2 in the morning 4 or 5 in the morning Neither of us believe we have time here in Northeast Ohio to sit and ponder what to do next Its time to take a bet take some risk and try to get the community engaged and start to get focused on building an innovation economy Whether its successful or not I have no idea But its already successful in that weve brought people together who normally wouldnt interact position or youre not willing to be flexible its hard to get a deal done today especially with an economy like this So I try to manage the client relationship in a way that allows us to navigate particular deal points and be flexible Sometimes you have to give a little and compromise Speed of execution is critical Deals that are delayed as a result of advisers are the deals that never get done We have a rule here to move transactions as quickly as possible in order to continue the momentum Deal fatigue is real Ive seen it happen lots of times where you just get too long into the deal and the transaction falls apart People understate how important it is to advance a deal from an advisers standpoint Lawyers are just part of the process Were in many ways paper pushers even though were business advisers Its our job to continue the momentum otherwise the transaction often fails to close The best way I could describe it is if you put a lawyer in a room with two doors sometimes they never get out You have to find a way to get past that for the benefit of the client We owe it to a client to be decisive and know when enough is enough and help move a deal forward Gaining wisdom My mentor was a gentleman named Bob Goodman from the law firm Goodman Weiss Miller He had probably one of the most dynamic law practices at the time when I was coming out of law school He represented eight public companies out of a boutique firm and he taught me some great lessons One of them was to make yourself indispensable What he meant by that was know more than anyone else Study the facts thoroughly And become indispensable vis a vis the knowledge you have So Ive always followed that mantra I really enjoy securities litigation I started representing public companies Doing that allowed me to understand finance accounting auditing and governance at the highest levels I was often locked in a basement reading all the documents from public companies and studying and learning what was discussed at board meetings and finance and audit committee meetings Being involved in some high stakes securities litigation for a number of years really allowed me to understand business My passion was for learning I know it sounds corny but I just enjoy learning about business especially in high stakes situations www kjk com Youve always got to find middle ground if you want to get a deal done Of course you always hit a breaking point The economics drive the decision JON J PINNEY MANAGING PARTNER KOHRMAN JACKSON KRANTZ