From the time he was young through graduating college with a finance and economics degree, Bridgeford LLC founder Brit Young didn’t have plans to become an attorney; his passion always leaned toward entrepreneurship.
It was not until he took and excelled on the LSAT — the law school entry exam — that he decided to work towards a joint Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration degree at the University of Florida.
The joint law and business program even further fanned Brit’s passion for working with entrepreneurs. In 2001, he landed a job at a large law firm in Charlotte, North Carolina, combining both degrees to help high-growth start-up companies.
While working at the law firm, Brit was always envious of his clients who were building teams and businesses. In 2008, the opportunity arose for him to become General Counsel of one of his start-up clients in Alpharetta, Georgia with a highly ambitious and transactional business plan. Though it was a precarious time economically, (with a very understanding wife), he made the leap in-house to help build the premier gastroenterology-focused medical device company.
“I literally sat with the founder in his basement and helped draft the business plan; so I got in at the founding team level,” Brit said. “It was a dream come true in that I always wanted to work with entrepreneurs. I was working with a high-quality team executing on a good business plan. Of course, it entailed plenty of work to make it happen.”
The opportunity to form a business with his client led to world-wide acquisitions, as well as the company’s IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in 2015, where he got to ring the bell with the founders of the company. After a short stint public, the company was sold to the Fortune 500 medical device company, Boston Scientific, in 2016.
“For a kid who was reading the stock pages in 6th grade; standing on the balcony of the NYSE ringing the bell with the founder of the company was truly a dream come true. It was amazing,” Brit said. “Working with a world-class team taking a company through a complete lifecycle – from formation, through explosive growth, IPO and eventual sale – was a rare and valuable experience I will cherish forever.”
Now, as the founder and principal attorney at Bridgeford LLC, Brit uses his years of real-world experience to help clients with their business goals and needs.
“There was an opportunity to continue to work with entrepreneurs by starting my own firm and being an entrepreneur myself. There aren’t many firms that can provide sophisticated transactional legal services, with real world in-house perspective, at a better value than the mega-firms ,” Brit said.
Outside of work, Brit likes to hang out with his family and run. He has run 6 marathons, including Disney’s ‘Goofy Challenge’ where he ran 13.3 miles on a Saturday and a full marathon the next day.
Brit said running these races gives him the excuse to hang out with his college buddies and have a couple beers afterwards — plus it is the best way to see a city.
Additionally and true to character, if Brit could be a celebrity for a day, it would be Elon Musk or Chamath Palihapitiya, both entrepreneurs who use their business prowess to improve the world.