unnamed-15.jpg

Abbie Baynes

Abbie Baynes brings extensive legal and commercial experience to her business practice at Baynes Law. Abbie’s clients are experienced entrepreneurs, small and middle-market companies that are closely held or family owned and nonprofit organizations. Over the course of her career, Abbie has worked with companies based in the United States, Europe, Central America, and Asia on matters with a great degree of complexity, including cross-border tax transactions, investments into the United States, private equity transactions, acquisitions, loans (including those that are syndicated or securitized) and other structured finance transactions.

Abbie also has worked with companies and their owners and investors from formation to sale based on substantial revenue growth, and she is skilled at working with the team of advisors that assist business owners throughout the company growth cycle.  

Abbie’s practice routinely includes mergers and acquisitions, contract preparation and negotiation, U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, equity investment transactions, commercial loans, commercial real estate loans and leases, and shareholder disputes. She also is experienced in the purchase and sale of franchises and the many aspects of nonprofit organization formation and governance. She has assisted a number of international companies who are setting up operations or headquarters in the United States.  Abbie's background working in business and in law give her a broad understanding of client needs as well as the ability to propose and evaluate a variety of solutions for client legal issues.

After spending many years working in large companies, law firms and the federal government, Abbie opened a solo business law firm in 2008. After a stint at a small Charlotte firm from 2016 to the summer of 2018, Abbie reopened Baynes Law.  She also has founded Otherwise Strategies, LLC, a consulting company that will focus on developing innovative business practices and company-specific metrics to measure success. Abbie has lived and worked in Charlotte and Charleston since 2003, after spending time in both New York and Washington, DC.

Abbie is passionate about community involvement and social justice issues.  She speaks and teaches about issues of interest to business owners and women.

ABBIE'S BACKGROUND

EDUCATION

  • George Washington University, J.D., 1991

  • George Washington University, M.B.A., 1994

  • Duke University A.B. (cum laude), 1985

ADMISSIONS

  • North Carolina State Bar

  • New York State Bar

  • District of Columbia State Bar

  • Maryland State Bar (inactive)

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

  • North Carolina Bar Association

    • Business Law Section Council Member; manage Business Law Section newsletter

    • Past Co-Chair, Annual Meeting Continuing Education Program

    • Past Co-Chair, Basics of Business Law Continuing Education Program

    • International Law Section Member; member of the Haiti Committee

  • Business Expansion Funding Corporation (BEFCOR) (SBA Community Development Corporation) - Board Member; Vice Chair of Board

  • Mecklenburg County Bar Association

    • Past Member, Special Committee on Diversity

  • Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW), Past Member

  • Founding Member, Charlotte Women's Bar

  • Women Executives, Past Member

Legal Teaching

  • Business Law for Entrepreneurs, Central Piedmont Community College: Small Business Institute (2019)

  • Mergers & Acquisitions, Elon School of Law (2019)

  • Entrepreneurship & Nonprofit Law Clinic, Charlotte School of Law (2010 - 2011)