Attorney April N. Richardson has ridden along in a client's sewer truck. She has stood in a gutted, dilapidated building alongside a general contractor, walking the space her client is renovating into a childcare center. None of that is technically her job. All of it, she says, is exactly her job.

"I am not that lawyer. I am a dirty lawyer. I'm gonna jump in your business with you," says Richardson, who runs DIRTY GIRL LEGAL, a Baltimore law firm built for entrepreneurs.

For Black Business Month, the Baltimore Times sat down with Richardson to talk about one of the four pillars every business owner needs in their corner: the right attorney. Not just any lawyer. The right one.

Not Your Typical Lawyer

Richardson's path to the law runs through business ownership, not around it. Before she was Esquire, she was a girl from Baltimore City's west side, raised by a mother who had her at 16. Richardson calls herself "News Channel 2" — a nickname her grandmother gave her for always asking questions and reporting back what she learned.

While working full-time as a federal attorney for the FDIC and the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Richardson built DC Sweet Potato Cake from a $75,000 operation into a company worth over a million dollars, working the business before and after her federal hours. She now also owns Baked in Baltimore, a manufacturing and retail bakery. That dual life — lawyer and entrepreneur — is the foundation of her practice.

"I am a true entrepreneur who happens to be a lawyer. And there's a difference," Richardson says. "There have been too many challenges with lawyers that hold themselves out as a business lawyer, and they've never owned or operated a business."

Beyond the Four Corners of a Contract

Richardson coined the phrase "the DIRTY GIRL" to describe an approach that goes far past the four corners of a contract. She wants to know her clients' systems, their mindset, even what's happening at home, because she's seen how personal life bleeds into business health.

"I need my clients to be friendly and warm, and tell me when they're having a bad day," she says. "Their home life has a great impact on their businesses."

That investment, Richardson argues, separates a transactional lawyer from the right one. "If they treat you like you are a dollar, you will get that type of transactional type of service," she says. "You have to have a lawyer that is completely vested and curious about your business."

The DIRTY Truth About Failure

Richardson doesn't sugarcoat the odds. Roughly 80 percent of businesses fail within their first five years, she notes, so the goal isn't avoiding failure — it's learning how to fall without breaking.

"There are so many entrepreneurs out here that are falling without assistance, and they don't know how to use the accountants, how to use the lawyers, how to use the army of professionals that are there to pick them up," Richardson says.

She also insists that accountability starts with the business owner. "Your business is your business," she says. "It doesn't belong to anyone, and that means the successes, the failures, the challenges, and the opportunities are yours."

Advice for Black Entrepreneurs

Richardson's counsel is twofold. First, hold your offering loosely — if the market rejects the way you've packaged your product or service, repackage it rather than abandon it. Second, know your own truth in an age of social media misinformation.

"Business is easy" is a lie, she says. So is "if I just do this, then this will happen." Richardson also cautions against quitting a steady job too soon: "Keep the job and learn how to have a company that works alongside of it until that job matches your economic needs. And then you can exit."

Her closing message to Baltimore's entrepreneurs is simple: "Let's get dirty. Lean in." And to the friends and family standing behind them, she asks for patience with a different kind of person. "Entrepreneurs are super unique; we are weird, and we are the ones that are willing to bet on ourselves. Be there to throw us back in to help us continue to shatter these glass ceilings."

Learn more about April Richardson at IAMAPRILRICHARDSON.COM.