How To Be A Big Brother

Aaron Graves is a business lawyer in Lincoln. In July, he opened his own firm, Graves Legal LLC.

Running a business was always the plan. There were ideas and ambitions looming in his mind for years. It was finally the right moment. Law was the right field. In May, he gave six weeks of notice at the Nebraska Attorney General's office, where he'd been working as a government attorney. July 1 was the launch date. The runway: twelve months to get the practice off the ground. There was no rush. Plenty of time. There was money saved up and he knew that starting a new thing would take time.

A few days after he told his boss, coming home from work, he walked into the living room. His wife was sitting on the floor playing with their one-year-old son, Arlo, who was chewing on a book. Aaron, curious, picked up the book and took a long look at the cover.

How To Be A Big Brother.

It took a moment to realize, but then it finally registered in his mind. They were expecting their second child!

A steady salary, gone. No clients. A plan built on twelve months of patience, and now a baby arriving somewhere in the middle of it.

"Oh," he remembers thinking. That was the whole thought.

This was the biggest scary moment of starting entrepreneurship. It wasn’t deciding to quit or navigating business on his own. It was the day he flipped over that book.

It presented two options: go back to a steady job or figure out the business thing in half the time. He chose to figure it out faster.

"It lit a fire," he said. "It needed to be faster than twelve months. I need to have a legitimate salary again by then [January]. That meant getting the business up to speed faster."

"Are You Happy Selling Forklifts?"

Aaron didn't go straight to law. He was a history and business major in college who added pre-law but never acted on it. After graduation he went into sales, and for a few years he sold forklifts. It was a good job, and he was good at it.

But law kept tugging. It stayed in the back of his mind, came up in conversations here and there, then fizzled out without any action. One day, on vacation, his friend Mark got tired of hearing about it.

"Are you going to do this or not? Are you happy selling forklifts?"

Aaron signed up for the LSAT that night.

Law school brought him to Lincoln in 2020, right in the middle of COVID. The class was split in half and rotated between in-person and online, with assigned seats all year to keep six feet apart.

“For a full year, your whole world was the few people sitting next to you.”

And within the few people that sat next to Aaron, “... they were the coolest people ever.” The woman to his right turned out to be his future wife. And the others are still his closest friends today.

"It can be a long road, but it starts pretty simply," he said. "Just get up, say yes, and go do things."

That first year, the answer to almost everything was yes. Every invite, every group, every event. That habit, Aaron says, is the core reason for his success today.

The Kind Of Lawyer He Wanted To Be

Aaron's firm works with businesses. Formation, contracts, regulatory compliance, and data privacy. The goal is to work with a company from the day it starts to the day it's sold.

The first meeting starts with the owner describing the business and its goals. Aaron explains how he may be able to help. He follows up to say whether he is the right fit for the work, and the owner decides whether to move forward. An engagement letter sets out the scope and how it will be billed: flat fee, retainer, or hourly, whichever fits the work.

But the bigger project is a different kind of relationship with the people who hire him.

Most business owners only call their lawyer when something breaks. Aaron wants to be in the room before that. Knowing how a client's business actually runs, where it's headed, and what it's going to run into on the way there, so legal becomes part of how the company grows instead of a bill that shows up after the fact.

“I win if they [my clients] win.”

One Hundred To One

The previous job was good, important work, and Aaron will say so. But it was missing direct contact with clients, and it was missing the business side of law. A look around at private firms turned up nothing that practiced it the way Aaron wanted to. There was an opportunity.

"I wouldn't call it arrogance," he said. "It's confidence. I can do this as well as anybody."

On July 1, an organization of more than a hundred people became an organization of one.

The hardest part is what disappears. At a firm, only the senior people have to bring in business. Now every client is Aaron's to find. No one reviews the work. No one catches a mistake before it reaches a client. The trust in his own judgment has to be total.

Exciting and terrifying at the same time, in his words. And something he loves. Running things. Wearing every hat. The only hat gladly handed off is accounting, which his mom now runs.

So far, it's working. On day one, his firm had its first client. Month one wasn't supposed to make any money. But saying yes to opportunities and moving his feet forward paid off. Month two made more.

The Last Question

I asked, "If we both passed away today, and you had one last message for the younger generation, the ones with law school in the back of their minds, the ones who want to own a business, what would it be?"

He took a second.

"It's not that hard to start making your way toward your eventual goal," he said. "All you have to do to be good is just try to be better every day. Good is the act of getting better."

Every generation is idealistic when it's young, he said. Everyone wants to do something that matters. Aaron spent years trying to figure out what that thing should be before doing anything at all.

"Be good at what you do. Be good for the people around you. Then that purpose is going to come."

Questions People Ask

Who is Aaron Graves?

Aaron Graves is a business attorney in Lincoln, Nebraska. He founded his own solo law practice in July 2026 after working for the Nebraska Attorney General's office, focusing on helping businesses grow with lower legal risk.

What kind of legal work does Aaron Graves do?

Aaron works with businesses on formation, commercial contracts and transactions, regulatory compliance, data privacy, and exits. Each engagement sets out the scope and how it will be billed: flat fee, retainer, or hourly, whichever fits the work.

How does Aaron Graves start working with a business?

The business owner describes the work and their goals in a first meeting. Aaron explains how he may be able to help, then follows up to confirm whether he is the right fit. If both decide to move forward, an engagement letter sets out the scope of services and billing.

What advice does Aaron Graves have for new business owners?

"Just get up, say yes, and go do things." Aaron believes purpose comes from being good at what you do and good for the people around you, not from waiting until you've figured it all out.

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