Dana Ball is a former litigation attorney who used to sue businesses. She has seen too many good business owners end up in bad situations, so today, she helps them avoid common legal mistakes that land them in court.
Dana’s 25+ years of experience brings value and relief to small business owners with practical advice they can immediately implement into their day-to-day operations.
Dana has made the process of small business compliance E.A.S.Y. with set pricing, 24/7 access to compliance resources, and strategy planning calls so clients can get back to running the business.
Dana helps small businesses avoid a legal mess with LLCs, S Corps, contracts such as services and website terms, business purchases, independent contractors, and employees.
Dana grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and her love for business started early. Her first business venture was at 6 when she sold napkins to the guests at her sister’s wedding! Despite maybe her mother’s embarrassment, Dana was proud to show her mom all the money she made that night as the flower girl. Then her first “real” job was at the age of 12, where she cleaned toilets and dusted the furniture working in her family’s Scandinavian furniture store.
During high school, she did not have lots of free time because she worked at the store every day after school and all day Saturdays. She likely complained at the time, but today she recognizes it as the ultimate lesson in the hard work required to run a business.
Dana learned early that problems don’t go away on their own.
Dana graduated from Olympus High School in 1989 and attended the University of Utah. While she continued working for the family business during college, she saw firsthand the financial stress on her family that comes with running a business and handling employee matters. Often Dana was the one the employees came to with questions, and she enjoyed bringing employee issues to her dad and brother for resolution. Dana also volunteered at the Salt Lake Rape Crisis Center while in college. She was trained to answer crisis line calls from individuals in awful and dangerous situations. In 1995, she graduated from the University of Utah with two Bachelor of Arts degrees in Organizational Communication and French.
With a dream to attend law school, Dana moved to Boston after college, where she worked as an HR Representative for 2 years with a non-profit school called The May Institute. Here, Dana performed 339 interviews of prospective employees; designed interviewing, hiring, and training systems; provided human resource support to 200 employees by updating personnel records, investigating complaints, and maintaining EEO compliance.
Working in HR, Dana saw first-hand that clear rules pay off the first time an employee issue happens.
Dana loves helping business owners set up the rules that provide consistency, protection, and a great place to work.
Law school provided the tools and mentors that inspired Dana to protect our workplaces.
She also participated on Golden Gate University law school’s Moot Court team for the National Appellate Advocacy competition. Her team was chosen to present oral arguments in the National competition held in Los Angeles, California.
While a third-year law student, she recruited 60 fellow students and founded a new student group called the Employment Law Group for the Student Bar Association. Dana’s employee-side experience is a major asset to her small business client.
During law school, Dana “took a bite out of discrimination” by working at the EEOC.
During law school, Dana developed a strong background in Employment Law while working at:
For the first year post law school, Dana was awarded the only fellowship position with WERC.
WERC provides free legal representation to employees who can’t afford to hire an attorney while giving law students real-life experience handling legal cases. As the Graduate Law Fellow, Dana assisted clients with the following:
Once the fellowship ended, she accepted a Law Clerk position with a well-known bay area civil rights attorney, Cliff Palefsky. At this firm, McGuinn Hillsman & Palefsky, Dana performed and evaluated 700 intakes over a 9-month period, covering issues of:
Dana appreciates working with Mr. Palefsky, who showed her how to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of cases. He also mentored Dana to not be a typical attorney, instead respects clients’ time and returns calls promptly no matter how busy we think we are.
One of the biggest complaints about attorneys is they take too long to return calls.
Dana has made access to an attorney easy for small business owners to help them when they need compliance support.
In 2002 Dana returned to Utah where she practiced solo until joining the Provo firm of ESPLIN │ WEIGHT in 2006. Over the years, Dana has sued large and small companies for harassment, discrimination, wage and hour disputes, and other wrongful termination claims. She also represented small businesses for breach of contract and business partner breakups.
In 2010, Dana decided to stop litigating because she was frustrated by all the money and time wasted on messy lawsuits that could be prevented. Dana took over running the operations of a dental practice where she directly drove a 40% increase with revenues by ruthlessly streamlining employee systems, legal compliance and vendor management. With the successful outcome of the dental practice, Dana started another law practice called Dana Ball Legal Services where she set out to run it like a business with systems, innovation, technology, etc.
Declaring War On Legalese Brings Immediate Value To Small Business Clients.
Running a law firm like a business provides immediate value to clients. Dana immediately switched from hourly billing to set fees, and she declared war on legalese. All agreements were cleaned up to active voice, no passive voice, no “recitals,” and no “heretofore,” etc. “That was a huge undertaking, but it has made all the difference in establishing why our services bring immediate value to our small business clients.”
The direction of rebranding from Dana Ball Legal Services to “AVANTA” in 2022 supported Dana’s goals to provide clients with an efficient and streamlined process from the initial consultation to the fulfillment of the services.
Avanta offers small business compliance support services with the following:
The two primary reasons small businesses could be sued are (1) over a contract or (2) an issue with an employee. Avanta keeps small businesses out of court by streamlining the delivery of services with the following:
Like her clients, Dana is a typical entrepreneur.
Here are some of her current side gigs:
Dana and her team aim to help small business owners worry “a little” less about running their business, one business owner at a time.
