Atlanta of counsel Lorie Mason is a skilled corporate attorney with more than 16 years of experience in assisting and managing merger, sale, and acquisition transactions and representing a diverse base of clients in other corporate matters.

Why M&A?

My father started his own business from nothing, so I grew up in the business and transactional world watching him navigate a growing enterprise and it was a natural fit. I also really like the process of two parties starting from opposite positions and coming together in a mutually beneficial arrangement with everyone happy in the end. The client depends on us as their partner to achieve their goals and it creates a very personal journey with them which is extremely satisfying. Every transaction has its own unique personality with different issues and that makes my job interesting every day.

What are some of the traits that you admire the most amongst your peers?

I am so lucky to work with colleagues with many amazing skills, but one thing I admire is creativity. Inevitably there will be a difficult issue that will arise along the way in a transaction, and someone will come up with a really creative solution for the client that achieves the goal and provides that quality service we strive to give our clients. I think the clients really appreciate it when we think “outside the box” and I’m always proud of how Nelson Mullins steps up to do that.

At this point in your career, what would you say has been your biggest accomplishment?

I had a successful career in tax accounting and then municipal finance before taking a break to help my father retire and sell his businesses. After that break I decided to pursue a goal I had since I was young – to go to law school. Starting over later in life with a totally new career is very scary. I would say that finishing law school 5th in my class was my biggest accomplishment. I’m so glad I was able to achieve that goal.

Who is your biggest inspiration?

My father really inspired me in my career. He was not educated but was a natural entrepreneur and although he grew up very poor, he found a way to build a successful company from the ground up. He sold that company and then built another one. When I worked with him to sell his last company it allowed us to have a business relationship as well as a father-daughter relationship which gave me a lot of insight into his thought process. One thing I will always remember is that he never gave up on the idea that there was a solution to every problem. No matter the obstacle he would always come up with an ingenious way to make it work. Significant issues arose in the sale of his businesses, and I couldn’t believe some of the wild solutions he developed to resolve problems. I try to always have that “no surrender” attitude when it comes to issues that may arise in life and in my career.

What inspired you to become an attorney

I can still remember the exact moment I decided to be a lawyer. I was 16 years old and watched the movie “And Justice for All”. After Al Pacino gave his brilliant closing argument to the jury, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. I intended to major in pre-law in college, but my father and his accountant decided I should be an accountant. They convinced me that there was a “lawyer on every corner” and I should find a more stable career path. I dutifully became an accountant and a CPA and worked as a tax accountant at KPMG for several years, went in house for a few more then by chance started working in the field of municipal finance structuring tax-exempt mortgage revenue bonds. I learned to read legal documents in those complex bond deals and that kept my hopes of going to law school alive, but I never made the leap. After helping my father sell his company, he asked me what I wanted to do next. I told him I wanted to go to law school and he said I should do it. So my father was the reason I didn’t go to law school after college and also the reason I had the opportunity to go later. I am very happy it worked out as it did because I appreciated law school so much more after having a career and I know now that I really was supposed to be a lawyer!