May 15, 2025
On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Alexa Steinberg – a corporate and transactional attorney for middle-market companies and entrepreneurs.
Acting as outside general counsel, Alexa represents privately held companies in a wide range of general corporate and transactional matters, including entity formation, structuring, and commercial transactions. With a focus on mergers and acquisitions, she offers clients guidance on structuring deals and ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations.
Brenda and Alexa discuss her journey from working at a small, all-female law firm to joining a full-service firm to better support her clients. Alexa shares how her parents—both deeply involved in business and community service—shaped her values around financial literacy, record-keeping, and the importance of building generational wealth. They speak about family-owned businesses and best practices in family governance, such as setting clear roles, regular meetings, and involving independent board members. Alexa also emphasizes the importance of building trust with clients and maintaining a purpose-driven, relational legal practice. Brenda and Alexa explore what "purpose-driven," "resilience," and "scalable" mean within the context of business and legal practice.
You can find out more about Alexa at:
https://www.greenbergglusker.com/alexa-steinberg/
episode transcript:
00:04
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00:32
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01:01
As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code
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Thank you.
01:18
Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host
of this monthly podcast where I have guests that are either
founders, professional service providers, corporate board
directors that actually share a mission with me, which is
bringing change to the world through great corporate governance,
but building resilient, scalable and purpose-driven companies.
On a monthly basis, my guests are going to tell their
origin stories and kind of how I've met them.
01:48
through the work they do. And I've recreated a fun sandbox
environment in which we do storytelling. And ultimately we will
touch upon resilience, purpose-driven and scalable or
sustainable growth in the businesses that they are
working in or owners of.
02:17
l I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest today, Alexa
Steinberg, Alexa is counsel at Greenberg, Glasgow. And
before that, she was actually practicing in a smaller law firm and
where her story today is going to kind of have some some
02:47
lessons learned on why she chose to leave the firm and move
into Greenberg, the Greenberg Lasker. But more importantly, you and
I go back a couple years. are part of an informal group of women.
We call ourselves Women and Wealth. We meet periodically to
really refer business to each other for those women business owners
that
03:16
are seeking perhaps an exit in the next three to five years.
And through our skillset, some of us are CPAs, strategy
advisors, yourself as counsel. A lot of these businesses are family
owned. And so you and I and another, know, seven other ladies
get to meet each other over lunch and discuss these
opportunities. And we're all very passionate about helping women
business owners. Aren't we,
03:44
We are Brenda, thank you so much for having me on the Founder's
Sandbox. I am an avid listener, so I'm very excited that I
get to be a guest. Thank you, thank you. you know,
we've had many, conversations, obviously, but I wanted
for my listeners to really dive into what you do today,
right? Which is really purpose.
04:12
driven and it's preserving family wealth, right? And I know
that you actually come from a background where your father owned
his business. So tell us a bit, us down memory lane and that
first story that you told me. Well, you know, growing up, I
watched both of my parents. My mother was a career woman. My
father, a financial planner.
04:38
running his own book. My mother, a buyer and then
in fashion and then into real estate. I watched they were
both very involved in the community. My mother sat on the
Studio City Council, the Neighborhood Council. She was on
many boards involved with the temple. My father as well sat
on many boards involved with the
05:07
Boys and Girls Club, and involved with the Jewish
Federation. So I watched as my parents really instilled the
importance of being involved in community, being involved in
family, being involved in the greater good and in purposeful
and meaningful organizations. And I...
05:35
sort of learned a lot about that watching them both in their
respective arenas being involved. And you know, they've, they've
truly inspired me, not only in my career path, but in
how I treat my clients in the arenas that I've become
involved in. There's a specific story that I think I've
shared with you, Brenda, about my father and how he sort of taught
me
06:05
the value of wealth, the value of money, because as his career,
that was what he did. He focused mainly on planning for retirement
and financially setting yourself up and your family up to have
generational wealth and what that looked like and how you could
prepare for it when you were 10, 15, 20, 25 years old, preparing
for family, preparing for children.
06:35
So when I turned 16, my father went into our QuickBooks. We had a
family QuickBooks. Oh, wow. That was before it was actually.
It was probably a hard disk, right? Not even on the
internet. Oh, yeah. It was like a hard disk. had a full set up,
massive computers, the whole thing, in our family office.
And he went into his QuickBooks. And he took.
07:03
what he spent on me in a year. And he divided it by 12. And
this included insurance. Mind you, I just turned 16. So my
car insurance, my car lease, medical, entertainment, my
tennis lessons, all of these things that were spent on me,
what it cost for me to function. Children are
expensive, you know.
07:32
I was very expensive because I will tell you that check was large
that he cut me every month. And he laid out, these are
the things that are monthly expenses for you that you need to pay
with this money. And the rest you can use on entertainment,
gifts, shopping, which I loved. But I had to
learn to balance my checkbook and balance
08:01
this amount of money, because I wasn't able to get any more until
the next month. And that really taught me how that
money was never something that was readily expendable
to me. even if I went to Starbucks and I bought a drink with my
father's credit card, he'd ask me for the receipt. He'd want to
know where the receipt was, always.
08:28
I was very meticulous in his record keeping which I am now very
much meticulous in my record keeping and I enforce with
my clients and make sure that record keeping is so important
in your business as well. You know and so when I when I
graduated high school my father said to me okay the checks are
done. And you need to go get a job in college.
08:56
And what I will do is I will subsidize the paycheck that you bring
home. So if you bring home $600, I will pay you 50 cents on the
dollar for what you bring home, but only up to $300. So I could get
a max of $300 every paycheck that he would subsidize. And then that
was how I had money to live and to function. my
parents, I was lucky enough that my parents would pay for my
college.
09:24
in my housing, in my dorms, but it was still really
teaching me the value of money. And my father required
that a certain portion of those funds get put away in savings and
invested. And he would tell me how to do that. And he would
guide me. because my father was a financial planner, he
would call me like a client and say, listen,
09:53
You're 70 % stocks, 30 % cash. I think you need to swap it. Let's
talk about what that means. And of course, I'm like, you're my dad.
Just do it. Why are we having this conversation? But it was so
valuable because he wanted me to understand what he was doing and
why he was doing it and how it really functioned. that I've also
taken into how I guide and advise my clients.
10:22
I don't just do for them. understand, I want them to understand
how we're doing it, why we're doing it, what the alternatives
are and what it means if we do it this way or that way.
You know, a lot of my discussions with my clients are about
strategy and about structure and so they can make an informed
decision. You know, I think that that's extremely important,
especially in a family business. Working with your family is
tough. So,
10:52
The way that you can make it that much easier is communication and
understanding and knowledge. And I try to arm my clients with that.
And that's something that my father really taught me. my
mother as well, because my father managed our money and my
mother would bring it home and hand my father a check and be
like, here, I don't know what you do with it, but do something with
it.
11:21
She also would, he would say, hold on a second. Like, I know
you just sold a house and here's your commission check, but let me
show you what we do with this and how we create generational wealth
and how we invest it and what the best benefit for these funds are
and how to use debt to our advantage. Um, you know, and
that's all of these things were such a value add that I
11:51
I obtained understanding about and that I've now turned this value
add to my clients and how they run their business. I'm
not a financial advisor, I'm not a tax attorney. These are just
really sort of general understandings and general
guidance points for my clients to go out and have
knowledgeable conversations with the appropriate
12:21
guidance, appropriate people, and the appropriate service
providers that are going to help them accomplish those things.
really, this is very loaded, but I really like the
methods your father used. very, well, first of all, intentional
and bespoke. And that's really, and he did communicate to
your mother, right? To instill also in her an understanding
12:52
of although she's bringing the check home because many, many women
business owners today oftentimes do not own a majority of their
companies. Right. And that is a shocking statistic that I run
into time and time again that women actually don't know how much
equity they have in their own business. Right. So just the
informing and, and you've translated that bespoke, you know,
communicating
13:22
helping your clients understand, pardon me, and
providing options as well as access to other professional
service providers as your own bespoke offering to your
clients. But it wasn't always like, yeah, go. That's sort of the
benefit of the group that you and I met in and all of the
networking opportunities that I've been involved in. Of
course, networking is about building
13:51
um, your brand and your book and, um, but a majority of it
and the real value there is meeting and learning and
understanding, um, and really coming to know people that can help
your clients where you can't, um, and having
trustworthy referral sources to do that, because I'm not just
going to tell my client, Oh,
14:18
this individual can help you with wealth management, call them
without knowing how this person functions, without knowing
how they run their clientele, how they do business.
Those are really important things and to have trustworthy referral
sources is really important. And that's sort of what our
group is all about. That's right. And it wasn't always
like this.
14:46
Right, you graduated from law school and started with a
small, it was a, I think a female-led law firm. all
female attorneys. Yeah, so what was your, this is right out of
college, what were you doing and what then informed your
decision at a very tender age to leave? So right out of
law school,
15:17
had worked my way through law school. I worked in family law for
about five or six years. during the day, I was at a law firm. And
in the evening, I took classes from 5 to 10 PM, four days a week
for four years. took me four years to get through law school. And
when I graduated, unfortunately, I wasn't afforded
15:47
All of the opportunities in law school that most law students
take advantage of, externships, fellowships, things like
that, because I was working my way through. I had already
been financially independent and I wanted to stay that way.
So I didn't want to quit my job to go to school. I
wanted to be able to do it all.
16:15
So as a result, I really didn't have the summer clerkships
that turn into job offers. And I was a little lost
because I had taken the bar exam and I was like, OK, I'm not
an attorney yet. But in three months, if I pass the bar exam, I
could be. Am I applying for law clerk positions? Am I
applying for associate positions? Like, know, I was so lost.
And I went on Craigslist. Oh my goodness.
16:44
And I found law firms that were hiring because I figured those
people, you know, they're they're looking to hire somebody now,
which is what I'm looking for. and hopefully those people, you
know, will transition me into an associate role. If I pass the bar
exam in a few months. And that was that was like my first sort of
in. And I joined a very boutique law firm in West Hollywood. It
was
17:13
By the time I left, we were three female attorneys. were all
female for my entire tenure there. I was there for six and a
half years. And it was in late 2019, early
2020 that I really decided I wanted more for my career and for my
book of business. And I wanted to be able to provide my
clients with a well-rounded
17:43
advice and guidance. I can't do it all, nor should I. I'm pretty
sure my malpractice of insurance wouldn't like that. Not at all.
But more and more, had clients that were asking me to help with
litigation matters or employment matters. And those are arenas that
I know just enough about to be dangerous. But I'm not going to run
a full litigation.
18:13
I can't willfully and knowledgeably advise on employment matters.
You know, especially to do justice by my client, do
well by them. I'd like to be able to have somebody for
them that they can speak to and trust and get the advice and
counsel that they need. And that really stemmed my
yearning to branch out.
18:42
and go to a firm where I had all of those resources at my
fingertips. I wanted more for my career, but my biggest drive was I
wanted more for my clients. I wanted really to be able to
provide them with well-rounded, multidisciplinary counsel.
And so I sought out full-service law firms.
19:11
I found my home at Greenberg Gloucester, which is a fantastic
place to be. I'm very happy there and everybody is so
fantastic and everybody is so good at what they do.
We've got employment and tax and IP and litigation,
environmental, entertainment, you name it. And
it's been such a benefit not only to my career,
19:41
to my clients, but I've learned so much. And is it
true? How would you characterize the typical clients without
revealing, you know, confidential matters? Is it also a firm
that's very oriented towards family owned businesses? Would
you say that? Yeah, I would. You know, I'm a counsel in the
corporate and tax department.
20:08
And you we don't have a ton of institutional clients. A lot
of our clients are family owned businesses, mostly held entities,
you know, which I love on a daily basis. I am working with
two sisters that own a business together or a
multi-generational company where, you know, senior is working with
G2 and G3 or
20:37
were actually this morning I was working on assigning
interests and reorganizing and restructuring a bunch of entities
that own a bunch of real estate for clients. And that's also
the kind of benefit that I get that I get to be pulled into
real estate matters with my corporate expertise to help a
family office restructure their ownership.
21:04
You know, and I love that stuff. We're extremely, the
way that Greenberg provides advice and counsel is on a
very personal level. The way that the firm and myself,
especially, we're a lifestyle firm. You know, we understand
that attorneys are people outside of
21:33
the walls of the office and that we all have lives. And we,
you know, I translate that to my clients. My clients have lives. My
clients have other things going on than their business. And
especially when you deal with family offices and family businesses,
there's a whole different dynamic of family
interaction. Yes. You know, and, and I have now experienced that
not only with my clients and sometimes I become
22:03
therapist in that regard, although I'm a very expensive therapist.
I'm sure there people that are less per hour. But I'm
experiencing it firsthand because my husband has his own
business with his brother and I have become
advice and counsel for them as well. And so I'm
seeing it sort of from a different angle too, but I think
that my clients truly appreciate
22:32
that when I talk to them, I talk to them as a person. It's not just
as a business owner. It's not just as I'm guiding you with
this legal advice. It has to make sense. And it
has to be actually applicable. And sometimes what my
advice and guidance would be in sort of this like legal
box is not the best.
23:00
for my client and how their business is operating. And you've
got to be sort of fluid with that. And bespoke. Yeah,
so it's really beyond, it's not a transactional relationship. It is
a trustworthy relationship based on the values of the family
businesses that and their goals in preserving wealth or
continuing to generate family wealth. Yeah, absolutely. This is a
great segue because you know, I also
23:29
passionate and have often guests that are sitting on corporate
boards. As counsel, have you observed any best practices and
family governance structure? You talk about G1, G2, G3, Have
you observed any best practices? We don't have to talk about
bad practices, right? But any best practices that you would like to
share here? Yeah, you know, I think that I've
observed that
23:59
Some of the most effective family governance structures prioritize
clear communication, well-defined roles,
professionalized decision-making. I use this in a very
loose sense of the word, but you could establish a family
constitution. Creating a board of advisors is always really
important.
24:28
having independent members in your board of advisors is
so incredibly valuable to have a knowledgeable, independent
person that can help through disputes. business disputes are
one thing, but when you include a family dynamic in these disputes,
emotions can get high and heated. And so having an
independent third board
24:57
Third party board is extremely valuable. Somebody that can guide
you, something that your family trusts. Those are some big things
that I've seen as best practices. And I think that lastly, holding
dedicated, regular meetings.
25:23
You'll talk about business, you know, at the dinner table or, you
know, out and about you're at a kid, one of your niece's birthday
parties and everyone's there and you're like, Hey, did you see that
email from XYZ? We got to figure out how to handle that. But
those are not the time and place and you're not going to have
a productive conversation. And so you need to set aside and create
boundaries between your family life and your business life
and set aside regular times.
25:53
weekly, bi-weekly, to have an hour conversation about what's going
on, any disputes that need to be discussed, any decisions that need
to be made. And that's your time to solely be in your
business mode. Because having these conversation piece meals,
dinner on a Saturday night, or a family's
birthday party, or a holiday party,
26:22
It's not effective for your business. And one of the biggest,
best practices and the most, one of the most important
goals is to preserve your family relationships. Beautiful.
You heard it here on the founder's sandbox to preserve family.
Absolutely. Cause if you don't have family, do you
have? That's right.
26:52
Family first. really important. It's really important. And
sometimes business can get in the middle of family relationships.
And it hurts to see that. It hurts to see business
tear between brothers, tear between father
and son. And I've seen those things in it. There needs
to be just a second to breathe. Yes.
27:21
and realize that there are bigger things than business and
that they need to be resolved, but they can only be resolved if you
have a good relationship with your business partner slash your
family. They're your biggest support.
27:37
This has been immensely actionable in terms of
governance, the best practice you've seen in family offices.
So thank you. Thank you for that. It's not often that I do have
a lawyer that works in this arena.
Although family businesses just in the LA ecosystem
is
28:05
It's very predominant. very, very, you know, third, actually third
and fourth generation now. So very relevant to your business and
mine. Let's switch gears. You are, I believe, sitting on the board
of directors or one of the committees of the Association of
Corporate Growth. Yes. And tell us a bit what why what is the
Association of Corporate Growth and what committees do you serve
on?
28:35
And how do you further your business there? Thank you. The
Association of Corporate Growth or ACG is a national organization
for professionals in the M &A sphere. So you've got
members that are VCs, investment bankers, M &A
attorneys, wealth managers, insurance specialists. You
sort of name it. Anybody that's
29:03
has some sort of involvement in the purchase or sale of a
business or just surround sort of just general business
governance that either prepare for an exit. You know, those
are the kind of people that are members of ACG. And I got
involved a few years ago. And I think three years now, I've
been sitting on the Women's Committee, which is a
29:31
Fantastic. We schedule and create women-focused programming within
the confines of the ACG organization and really promote networking
amongst women. More and more, I have had clients that have
requested that they only work with women.
29:58
You know, and this sort of goes back to what I was talking about
earlier about being able to provide trustworthy referrals.
And I've met some incredible, incredible women in connection
with ACJ. In fact, our group kind of came out of ACJ. This is how I
met you, Brenda. And so it's been a fantastic, fantastic
network to be a part of. You know, I love planning the
programming, our programming.
30:28
ranges everywhere from talking about the state of the market
to balancing family and career and what that looks like
and mental health. I think I hate calling out a
distinction that we are women in business because I think
a
30:57
A business person is a business person. I don't think it needs to
be defined as such, but there is something to be said about the
fact that women have a different set of challenges in the
workplace than men do. And a lot of those stem from
family life. And that needs to be balanced. And
so there's a lot of programming that the women's committee
puts on that sort of
31:26
talks about that and gears us in that direction and
gives us tools to be successful and to strive in the face
of everything else that women just have to deal with
and take care of. That's for another episode here. Yes, very much
so. Very much so, yes, as we all have balanced our careers and
family priorities, right?
31:56
Let's switch gears. How do my listeners contact you? How's
the best way? Well, so I'm at again, I'm at Greenberg
Gloucester. We're in Century City. They can email me. It's
a Steinberg at gg firm.com. And on our Greenberg
Gloucester website, if you search people, I've got my whole bio and
all of my contact information as well. Excellent.
32:25
Well, that will appear in the show notes. All right. So we're
coming into the final part of this podcast in which I
actually enjoy asking my guests what the meaning is of
certain terms that I actually practice with my clients. I'm working
with purpose-driven companies, resilience. We work on resilience
tactics and scalable business is sustainable. So I
always love the opportunity to hear
32:55
firsthand from my guess. What does purpose-driven mean to you,
Purpose-driven means a mission that goes beyond profit.
It taps into creating meaningful value for your customers,
for your employees, for the community that you
operate in. It's sort of about building a company
that
33:25
that stands for something. And I'm very pleased to say that
we have seen so many more companies start out of a
purpose-driven goal. There's a bunch of old companies
and new companies. There's a lot of companies that have this
sort of one-for-one model. You buy one, we donate one.
33:52
There are socks companies, there are eyeglass companies, there are
shoe companies, there are cleaning product companies that
sort of have this as their motto. And then you
see additionally, know, products and companies that are
committed to the environment or sustainability and cleanup efforts.
You know, that's really what purpose-driven
34:21
means to me is that these companies have a goal. They
want to accomplish something more than what they can show on their
balance sheet. consumers of that product are helping them achieve
that. Excellent. Excellent. You've touched on even other
aspects like sustainable growth, right? Yeah. Right. What is
resilience? You've been particularly resilient.
34:49
You having a father like your father, building life skills
early. would resilience, what's the meaning to you?
35:00
Resilience is about navigating challenges with
adaptability and with determination. It's about learning from your
setbacks instead of being defined by them, having them be a
fire to your growth and having them be the galvanization of
your progress forward.
35:30
You know, and in business, it also can be about the ability to
pivot while staying aligned with your long-term goals, about
the ability to, you know, okay, there's a new regulatory,
new regulation that's gonna affect the way we operate. Okay,
how are we gonna pivot to continue doing what we do, but
still can stay in compliance? You know, that's
really,
35:59
what it's all beyond your toes. Excellent. And you're
scalable. I'd like you to kind of share the meaning within the
context of scaling the legal practice. What have you found to be
particularly challenging or easy to do? Right. And
scaling, right. Because it's a very bespoke practice. Is there any
important, right? Scaling is absolutely important. Okay.
36:28
In my practice and in my business, number one goal
and the biggest galvanization point of scaling my
practice are my clients, my current clients. If you do a good
job for them, they'll continue to come back.
36:59
and they'll continue to give you more business. Creating a
network. I watched my parents in their, both of their practices.
All of our family friends at this point have at one point or
another been a client of my mother's or of my father's.
They've swapped clients, referred to each other. And
these individuals either started as friends and became clients.
37:29
or became friends because they were clients. And
that is the way that both of my parents have built their
practice and their brands. And that's how I want to do it
too. It's a value add when, attorneys are scary to begin
with. Nobody wants to talk to an attorney. It's expensive.
Half the time you have no idea what they're talking about. It's
language.
37:57
You know, but if you create this relationship of trust and of
loyalty and friendship and when you feel like your attorney
sees beyond just you as a dollar figure or you as a business,
it goes such a long way. And that's my main value add to my
clients. And in turn, they help me scale.
38:22
my business, clients continue to come back to me and I'm able
to continue to grow that because I can satisfy all of their needs
with the network that I'm creating through places like ACG. You
know, so that's, that's what I see is as scalable in my industry.
It's extremely important. And it goes to the heart of how I
practice law and how, how I guide and advise my clients.
Beautiful.
38:52
Thank you. heard it here on the Founder's Sandbox. Last question,
Alexa. Did you have fun in the sandbox today? Oh, it
was so fun. Brenda, thank you so much for having me. This was
fantastic. Thank you. So to my listeners, if you've enjoyed this
monthly episode with Alexa Steinberg, counsel at Greenberg,
Greenberg Gloucester, right? Greenberg Gloucester. Yep. I
encourage you to
39:22
sign up, subscribe either on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I'm on all
main podcasts streaming services where my guests talk about how
they felt resilient, scalable and purpose driven practices
informed by their origin stories. You can find it here on the
founder sandbox. Thank you and signing off for this month.
Thank you, Alexa. Thank you. This was fantastic.