Juliet Peters

Juliet Peters spent a decade as a television journalist before law school, working in Ohio, Corpus Christi, and Milwaukee. She always wanted to be a lawyer, but her love for journalism put that dream on pause. After graduating from Arizona State University College of Law, she worked as a civil litigator at a large law firm, then supervised more than 380 lawyers and staff as Division Chief Counsel for the Child and Family Protection Division at the Arizona Attorney General's Office. She also spent time at Cold Stone Creamery, which she describes as "fun and chaotic," supplying her with the business chops she needed later in her career. In 2014, Juliet founded Framework Legal in Scottsdale, Arizona, with the mission of building a client-centered business law firm that works in lockstep with entrepreneurs. The original idea was to work exclusively with women founders. Unfortunately, because only 1.9% of women owned businesses ever make it to 1M in revenue, she often found herself working with male entrepreneurs who were further along in the revenue race and therefore accessing legal services at a higher rate. The good news though is that in the last decade,  women have started to open businesses at twice the rate of men. Working with female entrepreneurs and amplifying their success with strategic advice is something Juliet is deeply committed to. Framework Legal focuses on helping entrepreneurs strategize entity formation, de-risk their companies, protect intellectual property, navigate M&A deals, and eventually sell their businesses. The firm offers predictable pricing (often a mix of flat and hourly fees) and takes a holistic approach to advising clients, helping them overcome legal challenges while also achieving business objectives. Juliet describes herself as part of clients' extended C-suite team, really learning their business drivers and helping de-risk the business from an inside perspective. Her approach is shaped by her own experience as a business owner. Because she's both run her own business and worked as a lawyer in a business (as opposed to a firm), she understands that every day business owners have to weigh risks. "You rarely hear 'no' from me," she says, "but you will hear where both the legal and operational impediments might lie." Clients describe her as "steady, thorough, and no-nonsense direct," "the rare attorney who has no ego," and someone who brings "passion, joy, and humor" to her work. One client said working with Juliet taught them that "as you become more successful and your business becomes more complex, all you really have to do is think things through, do what's right, and it will all work out." Her philosophy on dispute resolution is pragmatic: she almost always thinks mediation or alternative dispute resolution is the way to go. She uses mediation in every single agreement (with carve-outs for injunctive relief, intellectual property disputes, or monies owed) because it sets an expectation from the get-go that you are a business that intends to keep relationships intact and wants to solve problems as they arise. But there are exceptions. When a bad actor is using deep pockets to squeeze a client or behaving unethically from the start, she's not afraid to bring in litigation firepower to stop bad behavior in its tracks.