Member Spotlight #44: Jennifer Justice

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Hi, I’m Jennifer Justice, Founder & CEO of the Justice Dept, Host of Takin’ Care of Lady Business Podcast.

The Justice Dept is a Business Strategy & Business Development Consulting Firm and a law firm which represents female-founded companies, female executives and talent to help them maximize their wealth and increase their value. More money in women’s hands, means more choices and freedoms for everyone. I spent 17 years solely in the music industry as a music attorney representing everyone from Mark Ronson to Jay Z to Beyonce as their entertainment attorney and as an executive at Roc Nation from its inception. I had a passion for gender equality and decided to take everything I learned from a business, strategy and legal angle and help women get rich.

Describe a day in your life as a founder

6:30 am

I have a very busy morning because I'm hosting around 60 women for an investor breakfast for one of my clients, West-bourne. West-bourne was born to create a go-to brand for plant-powered and planet-positive pantry staples like granola, avocado oil, pancake mixes - with the least impact on our environment. I need to get ready, look presentable and still get my children up and get them to school - all without making an entire mess of my apartment. 

7:15  AM

I'm showered and ready to go. Now it's time to get my children up and ready to go. Start making them breakfast. The easiest is possible. Smoothies (packed with everything they would never eat) and Croissant toast - it’s a thing. I also start making my kids lunches, but I'm careful not to mess up my kitchen since my kitchen island is full of about 60 bottles of avocado oil from West-bourne, as well as all their other amazing items such as their coconut Crumble and house granola. 

8:20 AM

I start reminding my children over and over and over (my 10-year-old boy/girl twins Jack and Nico) and over and over and over again - to put their shoes and socks on, brush their teeth, and grab their backpacks because we need to get out of the house

8:26 AM 

Out the door and on our way on the three-block walk to their school.

8:40 AM 

Camilla Marcus, the founder of West-bourne, arrives along with some other early arrivals.  

9:00 AM

A cavalcade of stylish, impressive and successful women start entering the apartment. Each grabs their cold brew and begins tasting all the amazing food provided by West-

bourne.

9:45 AM 

Introductions begin. It is an amazing event and so well attended beyond our expectations. We begin the Q&A and everyone has such amazing questions and tips to add about a product line and sustainability that it blows us away and the excitement around the brand is beyond our wildest dreams.

10:45 AM 

People slowly start trickling out, and my kitchen island that was once devoured by all the products, is now empty as everyone is excited to try everything that West-bourne makes. We take the last few selfies/photos so everyone knows we were there of course which include tote bags from my podcast, Takin Care of Lady Business.  

12:00 PM

Call with my editor regarding my upcoming book, my companion piece to Takin Care of Lady Business: How to Build the Matriarchy. I have a lot of work to do on it and a lot of follow-up from some guests but I'm excited that it is moving forward as quickly as it is.

1:00 PM

Time to record a podcast episode for my podcast, Takin Care of Lady Business, with the amazing Rebecca Minkoff! She of course nails it in less than the time allotted and realize she will be my 100th guest!

2:00 PM

Finish up some time-sensitive work for my clients’ Salt N Pepa – they have a big well-deserved deal coming up and has taken a lot of time and attention. Then on to phone calls and Zooms for the next three hours with clients.

5:30 PM

I am co-hosting a women-only dinner with UBS and The Justice Dept to introduce women in all different spheres of life to each other – you know, how the boys do it. We get the private room at Hancock Street, and the guests start arriving. It’s women in all areas in Venture Capital, founder of Caulipower brand foods, female executives wanting to learn angel investing and some who are looking for career changes – all in different industries.

9:00 PM – Dinner is finally over, and go home to kiss the kids and wind down for bed. It’s been a very long day.

How did you get your start in music?

I started in the music industry as a music attorney at the then-newly formed law firm, Codikow, Carroll, Guido & Groffman, LLP. Elliott Groffman had left the all-male (still to this day – no female partners) law firm of Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks to join

Rosemary Carroll, Michael Guido & David Codikow. I was a junior associate, and the first client I was asked to work on was a then-unknown JAY Z. I was tasked to clear the sample for the composition “It’s a Hard Knock Life” for his new song “Hard Knock Life” for his album Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life. From there, my career in music and in hip hop in particular, only grew.

I made partner in three years and amassed more amazing clients, from Mark Ronson to Method Man to Slipknot and Juliette Lewis. At the same time, I was representing executives that were negotiating their employment agreements with their respective employers. In one negotiation in particular, I was representing a female Senior Director for Universal Music Publishing in A&R named Rebecca Wright (she tells the story too and approves of me telling it too!). She had signed some big songwriters and made the company real money. Yet, they only offered her $90,000.

What was more infuriating is that I had just negotiated the deal for the Director, a level below Rebecca, for a man that hadn’t signed anything real to UMP yet, and he was offered $130,000 right off the bat. Needless to say, I pointed this out to UMP and instead of doing the right thing and increasing her salary said things like, “She’s fine with it, why do you care?”, and my favorite “Her husband makes a lot of money so she doesn’t need it”. You cannot make this shit up! They ended up giving her only $10,000 more, and that started my crusade to end the gender pay gap and the gender wealth gap.

I stayed at Carroll, Guido & Groffman (the name had changed by the time I left) for 11 years total after negotiating Jay Z’s deal with Live Nation. I went to Roc Nation as one of the first employees in 2010 as the General Counsel. In a matter of a few years, we grew the company and the value of Roc Nation exponentially. I was then promoted to EVP, Strategic Marketing & Business Development, where I helped other artists on our roster leverage their passions and community to build solid businesses outside of music.

During this time, I became a single mom by choice to boy / girl twins because of course I wasn’t busy enough. When they were about to start school, I decided to leave Roc Nation and figure out what was next for me – I had been working with Jay Z for 17 years at that point. I needed a new challenge. My passion for gender equality had only grown but I needed more experience outside of my comfort zone so I became the President of Corporate Development at Superfly – the live experience company known for creating Bonnaroo and Outside Lands. While there, I expanded my capital-raising abilities and my network of players in that field. I learned a new vertical in a creatives journey.

However, I was still making money for men by day and trying to overthrow the patriarchy at night. So when my three-year contract was coming up, and they didn’t need me anymore, the seeds of the Justice Dept were planted. So many women had come to me asking who they could hire as an attorney that understood them? Who could help them raise money or build their female-founded companies that understood their journey? Who could help them grow and hire the business people they needed they could trust and took them seriously. Thus, the Justice Dept was born! Our sole mission

is to make women rich so they can make the choices they deserve to make for themselves. We have never lived in a time of conscious capitalism – what happens when capital is in the hands of the others? Only one way to find out!

A woman/role model you admire (could be alive or dead)

I get asked this a lot and I can never choose just one. I admire all of us – what we do every day to get thru the day as women, mothers, wives, daughters, friends, employees – we deserve to be celebrated every day. We are all superhuman.

3 values that guide your life

I value having a stand and speaking up – advocating - especially now for women. Silence is complicity in my book.

I also value perseverance and loyalty.

Tips for staying grounded on a tough day

I allow myself to acknowledge it, give myself a break, stay off social media and know it will pass.  Tomorrow’s another day and we have work to do. Quitting isn’t an option.  

One piece of advice you'd give your younger self.

Believe in yourself, bet on yourself and trust your instinct. No one truly knows your strength but you. Embrace being underestimated. You are worth every dollar and at least 30% more.  Your words are important, your voice matters and the more we hire each other, buy each other’s products and invest in each other’s companies, the more those words and voices will be heard!