Brian Heller
Attorney
Brian Heller has over 20 years of experience as a lawyer and business development executive in both in-house and private practice roles.
Currently, Brian is a partner with Outside GC, a full service virtual business law firm. OGC has close to 100 lawyers, servicing a wide variety of corporate legal needs. As a virtual firm, it is much more cost effective and affordable than a typical firm of its size. If you need a lawyer for more than just a Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, please reach out to Brian at [email protected] to see whether he can help.
Brian regularly negotiates and drafts a wide variety of agreements related to SaaS/PaaS, licensing, digital & social media & advertising (insertion orders, social media influencer campaigns, content production & licensing, ad network and ad platform deals (DSP, SSP, DMP, CDP), ad-tech, streaming (IPTV, OTT), etc.), fin-tech / crypto currencies, cloud services and mobile apps, virtual reality and artificial intelligence, renewable energy, terms of use / terms of service, privacy policies, data processing agreements (DPAs), service level agreements (SLAs), marketing, distribution and other technology agreements.
Prior to GlobalSpec, Brian worked for AOL for 12 years in senior legal and business development roles. As Assistant General Counsel at AOL, he managed a team of 6 attorneys and 4 paralegals responsible for negotiating and drafting all advertising, e-commerce and search related transactions, worth approximately $1 billion in annual revenue. As VP Business Development at AOL, he managed a team of 13 people that supported all transactions for all of AOL’s web content properties, negotiating and closing over 400 deals per year for over 75 different websites & brands.
You can find him on X (formerly known as Twitter) @briheller, on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/briheller/, and on his law firm’s website at www.outsidegc.com/attorney/brian-heller.
Before joining Outside GC, Brian was in charge of all legal transactional work, corporate development (CorpDev) and business development (BizDev) matters for GlobalSpec, a private equity owned (by Warburg Pincus) b2b web business, where he served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Business Development. Brian left the company after successfully helping GlobalSpec find a buyer and sell for $135mm.
Prior to GlobalSpec, Brian worked for AOL for 12 years in senior legal and business development roles. As Assistant General Counsel at AOL, he managed a team of 6 attorneys and 4 paralegals responsible for negotiating and drafting all advertising, e-commerce and search related transactions, worth approximately $1 billion in annual revenue. As VP Business Development at AOL, he managed a team of 13 people that supported all transactions for all of AOL’s web content properties, negotiating and closing over 400 deals per year for over 75 different websites & brands.
In 2005, while at AOL, Brian was first to patent the idea of customizing video football highlights to each user’s fantasy football roster (US 07988560).
Before AOL, Brian worked as a corporate lawyer for Akin Gump in Washington, DC, doing general corporate transactional legal work, including IPOs, debt offerings, joint ventures, and a wide variety of commercial transactions. Brian started his career in corporate law at Shearman & Sterling in NYC, where he specialized in drafting and negotiating project finance transactions and multi-bank syndicated loans up to $1 billion, including a loan to Michael Jackson to finance production of certain MTV videos.
Brian is originally from Shaker Heights, Ohio (near Cleveland), and has lived in Michigan, Boston, New York City and Washington, DC. He now lives in Vienna, Virginia with his wife, Stacey (who is also a lawyer for Outside GC) and their two kids (in school at UVA and MIT). He spends his free time serving as an advisor to several startups, ventures and non-profits. One of these non-profits, Chess 4 Charity, Inc., was created by his children, so he holds the unenviable position of working for his kids!
Key Experience
- Partner, Outside GC, full service virtual corporate law firm
- SVP of Corporate and Business Development, GlobalSpec (then owned by Warburg Pincus; successfully sold for $135 million)
- Assistant General Counsel & VP of Business Development, AOL
- Corporate Attorney with Akin Gump (DC)
- Corporate Attorney with Shearman & Sterling (NYC)
Credentials
District of Columbia Bar
Education
- Boston University, J.D., cum laude
- University of Michigan, M.B.A. (Marketing & Finance)
- University of Michigan, B.A. (Economics)
Connect
Download Full Bio
