About the firm
A small practice, organised around judgment.
Northbridge was built on a straightforward idea: most companies do not need more legal information. They need someone who will read the situation, weigh it against what the business is trying to do, and say what to do about it.
Philosophy
Judgment is the product.
Legal work splits roughly into two categories. The first is production: drafting a document correctly, filing on time, getting the mechanics right. It has to be done well, and doing it well is largely a matter of care and process.
The second is judgment: deciding which of several defensible positions to take, how hard to push on a term, whether a risk is worth carrying, when to settle and when not to. This is the part that is difficult to buy, difficult to systematise, and the reason a company retains counsel rather than a template.
A firm organised around judgment looks different from one organised around volume. It takes fewer matters. It puts experienced people on small questions rather than reserving them for large ones. It spends time understanding a business before it is strictly necessary, because that understanding is what makes a fast answer possible later.
The measure of good counsel is not how much of it a company needs. It is how few of its decisions turn out to have been made without the information that mattered.
Values
Six commitments that shape the work.
- 01
Say the thing that is actually useful
The most valuable sentence in a piece of legal advice is usually the one that names the risk plainly. Hedging every statement protects the adviser and leaves the client no better off than before.
- 02
Fewer clients, held properly
Context is the thing that makes counsel worth having, and context takes time to build. A practice that takes on more than it can hold ends up rebuilding that context on every call.
- 03
Cost is part of the advice
A technically correct recommendation that costs more than the risk it removes is a bad recommendation. Fees, management time and delay all belong in the analysis.
- 04
Prevention over recovery
Most of what a business pays lawyers to fix could have been avoided by a shorter conversation earlier. We would rather be a smaller line item more often than a large one occasionally.
- 05
Discretion as a default
Commercial matters are frequently sensitive long before they are confidential. A firm should be careful with what it repeats, and careful about what it publishes.
- 06
Know the boundary
A boutique cannot do everything, and pretending otherwise is how clients end up with generalist answers to specialist questions. Knowing when to bring someone else in is part of the job.
Decision-making
Four questions asked on every matter.
- Is this a legal question or a business one?
- Many questions that arrive as legal questions are commercial judgments with a legal component. Separating the two tells the client which parts we should decide and which parts they should.
- What is the realistic downside?
- Not the theoretical worst case, but the outcome a reasonable person would expect if this goes badly — and whether the business could absorb it.
- What does it cost to remove?
- In fees, in time, and in friction with a counterparty. Some risks are cheaper to accept deliberately than to negotiate away.
- What would change this answer?
- Every recommendation rests on assumptions. Naming them lets the client tell us when one turns out to be wrong, which is usually how advice goes stale.
Our team
Senior counsel, directly involved.
- ME
Mara Ellison
Managing Partner
Corporate transactions · Outside general counsel
Mara advises founders, boards and executive teams on ownership, financing, commercial agreements and the legal decisions that accompany growth. She serves as outside general counsel to a concentrated group of privately held companies.
Admissions: New York
- DC
Daniel Cho
Partner
Commercial litigation · Business disputes
Daniel represents companies in contract, ownership and business-tort disputes. His practice is built around early case assessment, disciplined discovery and resolving matters against a defined commercial objective.
Admissions: New York · District of Columbia
- PD
Priya Desai
Counsel
Employment · Workplace investigations
Priya counsels employers on hiring, classification, policies, performance issues and separations, and conducts sensitive internal investigations. She works closely with leadership and people teams on practical, defensible decisions.
Admissions: New York · New Jersey
Client experience
What an engagement looks like.
- 01
First conversation
A short call to understand the situation and decide whether it is something the firm should handle. No charge, and no obligation on either side.
- 02
Conflicts and scope
A conflicts check, then a written scope: what is included, what is not, who will do the work, and what it will cost.
- 03
Engagement letter
Signed before substantive work begins. This is the point at which a lawyer-client relationship is formed — not at first contact, and not through this website.
- 04
The work
Regular, plain updates. If the scope changes materially, that is a conversation before it is an invoice.
- 05
Close or continue
A defined end point for project work, or a scheduled review for ongoing engagements — including an honest view on whether the arrangement still fits.
Next step
If the approach fits, start with a question.
The first conversation is about whether this is the right practice for the situation. That is a short call, and often the most useful part of the process.
We typically respond within one business day.