Brogan Law is Built for War
2025 is shaping up to be a huge year for the firm. You should join us.
I started this newsletter back in July. The goal was to produce a genuinely useful document for my clients and network every week. Brogan Law represents members of the cryptocurrency industry, and to do that well, I feel it's important to closely read all current case law and relevant secondary sources. Most of you, understandably, don’t read these cases as closely, so by providing written analyses of things I would be reading anyway, my hope was I could produce something of value.
Half a year later, we’ve cultivated a growing group of regular readers, and I’ve had a lot of fun, so thank you! There is a lot going on this week. Most notably, the IRS issued final regulations classifying DeFi front end as brokers and requiring them to engage in reporting compliance. That won’t go into effect until 2024, but the Blockchain Association and DeFi Education Fund have already sued the IRS over it with their friends at Skadden Arps.
Instead of in-depth coverage of that (we’ll do it next week), this week is a little different. Since it's the end of the first year of Brogan Law’s operations, I am going to use this inter-holiday newsletter to be a little self-indulgent.
Why you Should Hire Brogan Law in 2025
In 2024, when I started Brogan Law, it was really just a tax-advantaged, limited liability, Aaron Brogan wrapper. I spent the previous several years taking apart cryptocurrency companies and helping build new ones in ways that minimized their risks, and, modesty aside, I was extremely good at it. So after I left BigLaw I figured I would wrap that up and sell it as a service. And that’s exactly what Brogan Law did for most of 2024—me and sometimes a couple other lawyers helped small to medium cryptocurrency firms build new products, de-risk existing ones, and deal with problems that old ones caused. So this is number one:
No firm is better prepared than Brogan Law to advise in cryptocurrency. Over the last year, I’ve made an effort to go out, speak to other attorneys in cryptocurrency, and get a sense of what our competition on the legal market is. My conclusion is that there is no group that understands the legal landscape of cryptocurrency better than Brogan Law. If you’re a lawyer, I mean no offense. Let me explain what I am saying and what I am not saying here.
Here is what I am saying. Operating a cryptocurrency business involves numerous overlapping legal regimes—securities law, derivatives law, BSA KYC/AML, OFAC, state money transmission, and much more. We have carefully studied and applied all of these, and have well developed models to minimize legal surface area from each. There are other lawyers who have done this too, but not very many. The truth is, most attorneys who market themselves as “crypto attorneys” only do so as a small percentage of a larger practice. That means that if you approach most BigLaw firms with these products you will get less experienced, less sophisticated service than you will at Brogan Law. Period.
What I am not saying is that (i) we know more than an in-house counsel at an established cryptocurrency business does about the issues particular to their own firm. I have found that in-house counsel are generally remarkably informed on the issues relevant to their firm, but you can’t hire them at an hourly rate. I am also not saying (ii) that we have the most specialized knowledge of all lawyers as to every particular issue. Some areas of law, registered derivatives for example, have incredible depth, and there are many fine practitioners who understand their nuance far better than Brogan Law. When those situations arise, we know them, and will bring them in.
Most of the time, though, cryptocurrency businesses need a crypto-native lawyer who can help them operate legally in the United States, and for that, money cannot buy better legal service than Brogan Law. We are the Harvard educated, BigLaw trained, card-carrying elite, and it shows. I think every cryptocurrency project and every VC should hire us for this reason alone.
This reason is not alone though. As we have grown our practice in 2024, Brogan Law has developed into much more than an Aaron Brogan wrapper, which is the second reason to hire us in 2025:
Brogan Law attorneys are highly experienced outside cryptocurrency law, too. My focus, as I said, is the regulatory treatment of cryptocurrency products. Recognizing that cryptocurrency firms have non-cryptocurrency problems, however, I have spent the better part of 2024 building relationships with other boutique law firms around the United States. Through these relationships, Brogan Law is able to offer highly skilled legal service for all of a client’s legal needs that may arise during its operational life. Are you negotiating a trademark dispute? We have a lawyer for that. Are you forming a fund? We have a lawyer for that. Are you seeking to organize in Wyoming? We have a lawyer for that. We are highly experienced at negotiating commercial contracts, and unfortunately, negotiating and litigating all kinds of disputes. Honestly, because we’re bragging here, I think we are much better litigators than most you hire in BigLaw.
For young companies, this under-one-roof synergy is highly valuable because, much like if you hired a BigLaw firm, you will not need to hire another firm. We got you.
But this is not all. Because there is yet a third major reason that I think has to be covered here:
Brogan Law is currently much less expensive than comparable legal service. I am extremely wary of framing Brogan Law as a budget law firm. We were ranked as one of the best small fintech firms in New York by Chambers & Partners for our service, not our price. So while it is true that our billable rates are significantly lower than those charged in BigLaw, it is far more important to me that we are able to provide much better, more attentive service.Clients are commodities at thousand-lawyer firms, but not here.
Now, obviously, there are things that BigLaw firms can do that we can’t, we would not be appropriate debtors counsel in a public company bankruptcy, for example. But if you are reading this, the odds are good one of those things is not what you need. You need an experienced lawyer to tell you what you need to do to minimize your legal risk, answer your questions, and help you turn that idea into reality. BigLaw is just not optimized to provide service like this in modest increments of time.
I’ve heard too many horror stories this year of companies receiving unexpected, unjustifiably high bills from BigLaw firms. Here’s the reality, those probably didn’t even register as large bills internally. It’s just a different animal. We are right-sized to your needs, and that allows us to charge highly competitive rates.
But let me tell you the truth—I hate charging less than BigLaw. I don’t think my time is worth less than it was two years ago, I think it is worth more. My intention with this thing is to turn it into a household name. When it has fully matured, my expectation is that we will charge the same as BigLaw firms do, because that is the quality we provide. But that’s then and this is now, and for now, this firm is still growing. That means you get a chance to get service at half the price that is charged elsewhere. Limited time only.
Finally, the most important in my view.
Brogal Law is built for war. Over the last year I’ve often heard some version of the sentiment “lawyers don’t really get business.” That is not what we are about at Brogan Law. From what I’ve seen coming out of other law firms, the typical pattern is that crypto businesses go in, they get put on ice for a while where some anxious partners weigh in, and eventually they are told a product is illegal. This is not what we do. We proactively develop arguments for affirmative legality, and fast. Where that is impossible, we suggest alternative structures to bring products into compliance. If you ask us for an honest assessment of a product's risk, that is what we will give you, but as a rule we aren’t a “no” firm, and we won’t make you wait.
A lot of people move to smaller practices to have a more leisurely lifestyle. That is not why I started Brogan Law. This is a hungry, founder driven law firm. We left the bureaucracy and conservatism of large law firms behind, but we brought the nose to the grindstone, long nights and weekends mentality. We know that most business outcomes are defined by a power law—almost all of the rewards are claimed by just a few exceptional entrants, and everyone else gets the long tail of nothing. We want this firm, and our clients, to be those chosen few at the bleeding edge; so at Brogan Law, we get after it and stay after it.
This firm is available 24/7, 365. Whenever you have a need, we’re here to serve. We work on your schedule so that our work will never be a bottleneck in your business. And when it hits the fan, this year, next year, twenty years from now, there is no surer partner for your side. Our current clients know exactly what I mean here, and future clients soon will too.
Look, I’m biased, but if all these things are true, I don’t know how you could hire any other firm. It’s a superior product at a lower price—that’s value. But I also know that if you aren’t one of our clients yet, you can’t know if anything I said here was true or if I’m just blowing hot air. Informational asymmetry, the academics call it.
Well that is what it is, but if you are a small company in the crypto space, wouldn’t it be worth bringing someone in to at least pitch against Fenwick, Cooley or Perkins Coie? If you are a VC, and your portcos could cut their legal bills in half, wouldn’t that meaningfully decrease their burn? Even if you don’t hire us, if we come in for the pitch we’ll at least keep whoever you do hire on their toes.
In 2025, I hope each one of you will be a part of it. The firm will have much more to announce in the coming weeks and months, but after this, I’ll go back to analyzing cryptocurrency law here.
Happy holidays. Until next week.
Brogan Law is a registered law firm in New York. Its address and contact information can be found at https://broganlaw.xyz/
Brogan Law provides this information as a service to clients and other friends for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or relied on as legal advice or to create a lawyer-client relationship. Readers should not act upon this information without seeking advice from professional advisers.