Jim Black: From Big Law to Big Impact — Building Exits That Protect Your Mission
Jim Black is a triple-bottom-line founder and seasoned legal advisor dedicated to helping B Corps, public benefit corporations, and other mission-driven companies achieve their social and environmental goals. A former BigLaw M&A partner and General Counsel with over 25 years of top-level experience, Jim now works closely with impact-driven businesses, advising on corporate and commercial matters and serving as a strategic advisor to founders and executive teams — often in an Outside General Counsel role.
Deeply engaged in the mission-driven business community, Jim serves as the Events Chair for B Local Mid-Atlantic and is an active member of Real Leaders, Small Giants, The Bloom, the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers, the American Council on Germany, and the ABA’s Corporate Social Responsibility and Middle Market and Small Business Committees.
To learn more about Jim and his mission-driven legal work, visit impactgclaw.com or connect with him on LinkedIn.
If you're navigating a business transition and looking for guidance on protecting your company's mission and legacy, you can start a conversation with the ImpactGC team [here].
*At Ethical Exits, we champion profit-for-purpose capitalism—leveraging business as a force for scaling philanthropy and creating meaningful change.
In every episode, we invite our guests to highlight a charity or organization that holds special significance to them and is making a real impact in solving global challenges.
We encourage you, our listeners, to explore these causes and consider supporting their important work*
Jim highlights two organizations close to his heart: the Innocence Project, which works to exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals, and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), one of the nation's leading LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, where he has volunteered and supported legal initiatives for nearly two decades.
At the same time, Jim shares that, for him, the most powerful form of impact is building and scaling mission-driven businesses themselves — demonstrating that a better, more equitable model of capitalism is possible. In his words, "Building businesses in this space is the most valuable thing we can do."