Gary Adelman is the co-founding partner of Adelman Matz P.C., a boutique firm headquartered in New York City with offices in Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, and Miami. With sister firms in over 20 states and 100 countries, the firm has the ability to represent clients in the global economy with the same reach as Big Law, but with greater efficiency and effectiveness. The firm manages more than 5,000 trademarks around the world, with clients that include Ariana Grande's Aria Makeup and Fragrance line and Paul Mitchell. In 2022, the firm secured a $4 million defamation verdict on behalf of Cardi B.
I asked Gary what led him to start his own firm.
"I thought I could do it better," he told me. "The number one thing I wanted to do better was customer service. I think lawyers miss that day in law school because they don't teach it. It's about servicing the client, but it's also about creating a customer experience."
Gary had been building toward this for years. He ran his own firm briefly in the early 2000s, joined other practices, and spent a decade refining his thinking about what a law firm should feel like from the client's perspective. When the opportunity came to launch Adelman Matz with his partner Sarah Matz in 2013, he was ready with a clear philosophy and three operating maxims to anchor it.
The first is "win, or lose less" - an acknowledgment that outcomes are not always within a lawyer's control, but the quality of the effort always is. "You can't always win," he explained, "but you can strive to do better for the client." The second is that Adelman Matz is a teaching firm, where senior attorneys invest time in developing junior ones, even when that investment doesn't show up on a bill. The third is a commitment to personal communication - picking up the phone not just for bad news, but as a regular part of doing the work.
Finding people who fit within the culture of the firm has been harder than building the client base.
"You have to hire three people to keep one over time," he said. "We have this thing called the lifeboat. The people who you would want to save if the law firm was sinking. That lifeboat has been expanding."
The same care that goes into building the team goes into serving clients.
"The more you interact with clients, the more likely they're going to have confidence in your abilities and confidence in your advice. To have a positive interaction with your client so that your client tells you everything they want and need, and you're able to advise them honestly and effectively - that's the job."
With departments that seamlessly integrate across practice areas, Adelman Matz operates on a simple promise: old school relationships, new school vision. Clients should be able to come to them for anything, and leave knowing it was handled.
Are you a business or creative in the entertainment, music, or brand space looking for sophisticated legal counsel? Connect with Gary Adelman and check out Adelman Matz P.C.