My sixth grader drops his backpack on the floor.

We do the usual how-was-your-day exchange. Today, that means a C on a religion test, followed by a full rundown of sixth-grade politics. Who just broke up. Who’s mad at who. Who sat where. Why it mattered.

Then he asks:

“How was your day?”

It sounds like a small question. It isn’t.

It was a hard day. I spent most of the week negotiating with someone who seemed to think progress was optional and stubbornness was a personality trait. I bit my tongue, stayed professional, and thought plenty of things I’m not writing down.

So I give him the edited version:

“Today I helped a company that’s helping save lives.”

He flops down on the couch, which I take as permission to keep going.

“You know in movies when someone stops breathing and everyone starts yelling, ‘Breathe! Breathe!’ while squeezing that bag like a stress ball?

Doctors use a bag to help people breathe, but if you squeeze it too hard or too fast, you can hurt them. One of our clients, safeBVM, makes a small device that helps keep the breathing safe. It keeps things calm when everything else is chaos.”

He nods.

“That’s cool,” he says.

I don’t explain to him that I wasn’t the lawyer working on safeBVM. Shannon Henry was. She handles their distribution agreements and does the work that helps safeBVM grow and save lives. But I was the one making it possible for safeBVM to get Shannon's rock-star help at a steep discount through our Unified for UN program.

Part of the fees from that difficult deal went directly to cover the legal work Shannon was doing for SafeBVM. That’s how they could afford GC-level legal help at roughly half the cost of a traditional law firm.

Real impact.

At Unified Law Group, PB LLC, five percent of every fee we earn is set aside to subsidize legal work for nonprofits and social enterprises. Not pro bono. Not a side hustle. It’s baked into how money moves through Unified.

If you run a nonprofit or a social enterprise, this part is for you.

Legal work isn’t optional, but it’s often the first thing delayed or cut because the math doesn’t work. Governance still matters. Contracts still matter. Compliance still matters.

Our Unified for UN exists to fix that math.

Through the program, nonprofits and social enterprises get access to senior, business-minded fractional in-house legal counsel at deeply reduced rates. Not entry-level help. Not leftovers. Real legal work that lets you build infrastructure alongside your mission.

If you’re a company paying lawyers, this is for you too.

You already budget for legal spend. The only question is where that money goes. With Unified Law, the same fees that protect your business also help fund legal access for organizations doing public-good work.

You’re not paying extra. You’re not trading down on quality. You’re choosing a model where your legal spend does more.

And if you’re a General Counsel in transition or thinking about what comes next, this may land differently.

Most GCs don’t burn out because the work is hard. They burn out because it feels disconnected. Part of why Elizabeth Daane and I started Unified Law was to give that work a second life beyond the transaction. Serious work, done well, in a system where the effort counts and helps the world - even if just a little bit.

Later that night, after the house is quiet, I think again about that question in the car.

“How was your day?”

It's often complicated. Some days are messy. Some days are frustrating.

But the part I hold onto is this.

My impact doesn’t end with a signature. It helps fund legal work for nonprofits. It helps social enterprises grow. It makes it possible for companies like safeBVM to get the best-in-class legal support they deserve.

And that is something worth explaining to a sixth grader.