“It always feels like a weight is being lifted when I loop her in, because I know she either has the answer, she’s going to find the answer, or she’ll fill in the missing pieces we need.”
The best legal problems are the ones that never happen.
Taylor Law works as outside in-house counsel for small and mid-sized businesses across the DMV. We learn your business, stay close to it, and give you a straight answer every time, before problems arise and when they do.
A different kind of legal partner
Many businesses wait to call a lawyer until something has already gone wrong. Taylor Law works the other way. We get to know your business, stay current on what you’re building, and flag the issues you haven’t thought to ask about yet: the lease clause that will cost you in year four, the contractor agreement that leaves you exposed, the equity structure that won’t hold up as the company grows.
Whether you’re calling about an opportunity, a question, or a problem, you pick up right where you left off with a legal partner who already knows your business and is in it with you.
Where We Come In
With you at every stage of your business.
Launching
Forming your business, signing your first contracts, getting the foundation right. We make sure the structure you build today can carry the weight of where you’re going.
Growing
Your first hires, your first office, your first major client contract. We help you put the right agreements in place as the business takes on more people, more clients, and more risk.
Transitioning
Bringing on a partner, taking on investors, restructuring ownership, or selling the business. These are the moments when the stakes are highest, and we make sure the terms protect what you've built.
What We Handle
Business Formation
The right structure, built to grow with you. Entity formation, registration and licensing, operating agreements, bylaws, and other foundational documents drafted for your actual situation, not pulled from a template.
Commercial Contracts and Transactions
Agreements that say what you mean and protect what you’ve built. Client, customer, and vendor agreements, NDAs, services contracts, commercial leases, licensing, and the everyday transactional work that keeps a business running.
Contract Review and Negotiation
The other side’s draft is written for the other side. We review the contracts you’re handed, flag the terms that work against you, and redline them into an agreement that works for your business.
Workforce Agreements
Clear terms with everyone on your team. Employment agreements, offer letters, independent contractor agreements, restrictive covenants, separation agreements, and employee handbooks, drafted to hold up when a working relationship changes.
Ownership and Equity
Ownership terms that match how the business actually works. Equity grants, buy-sell provisions, terms for new partners and investors, and restructuring when the current setup no longer fits where the company is headed.
Business and Asset Sales
Buying or selling a business is one deal you can’t afford to get wrong. Letters of intent, due diligence, purchase agreements, and closing documents for the sale of a business or its assets, whether you’re the buyer or the seller.
A few examples of what this looks like in practice
Who you'll
work with.
Shannon Taylor brings more than twenty years of legal experience in private practice and government. She began her career as a prosecutor, first as an Assistant Solicitor in Charleston, South Carolina, and later as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Western District of Virginia. She also represented survivors of domestic violence in DC Superior Court through local legal advocacy organizations. Those experiences taught her to think on her feet, navigate difficult situations, and never lose sight of the people affected by her decisions.
Advising businesses at several law firms convinced her that small and mid-sized companies deserved a more hands-on, personalized, and responsive kind of counsel, and in 2017 she founded Taylor Law to provide it. As a business owner herself, she understands what is at stake for her clients, not just legally but operationally and personally.
Shannon earned her J.D. from Tulane University Law School and her B.A. from the University of Virginia. She served three years as Chair of the D.C. Bar’s Law Practice Management Steering Committee and received the Community’s 2026 Lawyer of the Year Award. She currently serves on the D.C. Bar Communities Committee and the board of the DC Women’s Network, and was named a 2026 Washingtonian Top Lawyer.
What to Expect
Initial Call
First, we’ll listen to what you need and walk you through how we work, so you can decide whether we’re the right fit. We work best with clients who want a lawyer who is honest, proactive, and invested in their success.
We learn your business
Once we’re engaged, you tell us what you’re facing or working toward, whether it’s a single question, a big goal, or a tangle of problems. We get to know your business, including how it works, who the key players are, and where you’re headed, so our advice reflects not just what the law requires but what the business actually needs
Ongoing availability
We’re available as questions come up, working like an in-house member of your team. When a matter calls for specialized expertise, we act as your legal quarterback, bringing in and coordinating with the right professionals.
Proactive guidance
Along the way, we look ahead so you’re not caught off guard, and we propose solutions that set the business up to grow, not just get through the moment. When the answer is a hard one, we’ll give it to you straight and help you find the way forward.
If we’re a good fit, you’ll know.
If you’re looking for a legal partner who will learn your business, help it grow, and solve problems along the way, reach out. Need something we don’t handle? We’ll help you find the right firm.
Get in Touch
Submitting this form does not create an attorney-client relationship. Please do not include confidential information.