Meet Mona Qureshi-Hart | Principal, Legal Placement and Recruiting Consultant & Former Practicing Trademark Attorney

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mona Qureshi-Hart and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mona, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Mona Hart LLC is the second business I started. I started my first in 2010, a boutique IP law firm, with my first husband, Brian, who is no longer with us. With this business, it came from me launching my second career as a legal recruiter. While I was in law school, I had aspirations to be a literary agent, interned at an agency in Boston, and even had a job offer at a major global entertainment agency in NYC managing foreign rights of authors and screenwriters. However, I moved to California after school and began a role as a traditional trademark and IP litigation lawyer.

A few years after Brian died, I wished to return to my original aspirations as an agent, but it would be much as a single mom with three young children to pick up and move to either LA or NYC to truly enter the field again. My compromise was a career tangential to my attorney career – legal recruiting. I began working with a global recruitment and staffing organization in its legal unit. I rose quickly through the organization from legal recruiter to a sales person across all four of its divisions, creating crafted legal solutions for top tier law firms, Fortune 100 companies and the US Congress.

While I loved the work, I found that large recruiting organizations and metrics meant compromising on what mattered most to me in my first business – relationships. It was difficult to focus on assisting a few organizations or people at a time. Some of this is because of overhead of a large organization. My organization was about to be sold to another corporation and my role was eliminated. I met with a friend and colleague who is the managing partner of an AmLaw firm’s Denver offices, and as I sat with him sipping my coffee, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and pulled up the Colorado Secretary of State’s page up to register my business. “Mona Hart sounds great to me,” he told me. “Let’s just do this.”

The trademark and branding lawyer in me protested. I suggested I needed to take a moment to come up with a clever name and logo. “People know you and trust you,” he told me. “Register your business and I will send you your first contract this afternoon.”

And so I did! It was something I’d entertained in my mind as a solution to the gaps in relationship development I felt I experienced at the large staffing and recruitment agency level. But to be honest, it took a major event and a nice prod from someone in the industry to give me the springboard I needed to leap into another business. My work with both law firms and candidate attorneys has been mainly referral based, candidates referring other candidates across the country such that I’ve worked with candidates in Philadelphia, Kansas City, New York, Chicago and San Francisco that are threaded to a talented, wonderful attorney I placed a few years ago in Denver.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’ve always loved the theatre and music when I’m not working or incorporating it into my work. I participated in high school musicals and choir when younger and then adulthood and career set in, along with children and supporting them through their creative and athletic endeavors. What I learned as I grew older and began seeing our children take on their own endeavors in sports and the arts, I too, wanted to play with them or join them or just pick up or return to my own interests. I married my second husband in 2019 and he plays the bass guitar. Amongst our children, one plays bass, three play guitar and one played the flute. They totally needed a drummer – so I began taking drumming lessons a few years ago so I could jump in a little bit. I’m not great at it, but it is a lot of fun!

During the pandemic, I began taking writing classes to return to my first love of writing, and I am working on a project about widowhood and children. But then I took an improv class at our local community center. It was the first class Miguel Hernandez, founder of Superior Improv Company, put on. We were emerging from the pandemic, I thought it might be a nice avenue to explore a creative and confident side of running a business and being a member of a business community. And you know what? It totally is – and so much more! I’ve found a wonderful community of friends of many backgrounds – professional actors, software engineers, chemists, marketing folks, lawyers and more. By its very nature, improv is an art that relies on vulnerability and trust to make it work. And because of that, there is a deep-seated set of friendships I’ve found through this art.

And also because of the ability to be vulnerable in front of strangers, I’ve become more confident in marketing my own business through social media and in person promotions, at putting some of my most honest ideas down on paper and, yes, playing the drums with my teenager and young adult children who have been playing for much longer.

Moreover, there is an overall vulnerability we need to take on to authentically run a business and be a part of our local communities. People connect with businesses that have a story, that are willing to get out there and share a part of themselves and yet be able to expertly guide them through a service or share with them a product. I’ve learned it’s alright not to be perfect, it makes us relatable as business persons, and there is something truly inspiring when we can share lessons learned amongst the business community.

Running a small business is not easy, and it is a choice we make every day when we wake up to keep going. But being able to run a business authentically, to acknowledge the reality that running a business is hard and that some days are tougher than others, makes it easier to share with other business owners ideas on how to address issues, build and thrive. In many ways, I wish I knew this as a younger attorney and business owner always putting on a brave and fully confident face. My business relationships are wider and deeper now, and I really do credit improv for helping me to discover, acknowledge and be okay with me putting more of my authentic self into my business and business relationships.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Oh, my goodness, so many places to see and enjoy on the Front Range and I do luckily get visits from friends in town to ski/explore and attend conferences where I get to show off our area. They often hit Denver on their own but I will give them a bit of the Front Range experience from Morrison/Golden to Boulder County:

Of course, Red Rocks for a hike and a show – maybe even looping with Matthews Winters Park for a longer hike. If we have time, a little visit to Dinosaur Ridge also to see the fossils. Tubing along Clear Creek in Golden in summer or ice skating on Evergreen Lake in winter. In Boulder, we’d have to visit Pearl Street and the pretty architecture of the CU campus. Sandwiches, soups and cheeses from Le Frigo and my friend Yvon for a picnic and hike at NCAR, Chautauqua or Brainard Lake – Lake Isabelle is in my top five all-time favorite hikes. For sure tea and/or brunch at Dushanbe and then a visit to the the Boulder farmers market and a little further east, Cure, Munson and 7th Generation Farms for fresh locally grown and raised veg and meats to throw on the grill.

Drinks on the roof at Rosetta Hall or Corrida or in the yard at Stem Ciders in Lafayette at sunset. Tacos at Tacos Ay Ay Ay in Lafayette and thrifting at either the Lafayette Flea or Noble Treasures. I love the posole and sweet potato enchiladas at Santo in Boulder, the Mexican Panna Cotta at Teocalli in Lafayette and OMG, the handmade papardelle porcini at Parma in Louisville cannot be missed. The mixed grill at Azafran in Broomfield is out of this world delicious and enough for two to share. The breakfast burrito, Christmas style, in Superior, at PJ’s diner where Pam makes everything with love, boasts some of the best red and green chile in the entire area.

We’d check out the latest releases at the Boulder Bookstore or the Read Queen in Lafayette. And for the performing arts, so many options! A comedy show – sketch, improv or standup, depending on what is playing that night – at the Flipside Theatre in Superior, which is propping up and raising local and national fresh talent and gathering the attention of established comedians. Some original new artist music at Roots Music Project or the End in Lafayette, or if feeling like bigger and more established musicians, at the Fox or Boulder Theatre – we are so lucky to have such rich places for so many types of arts so close by! And if I’m with a college sports nut like I am, of course we’ll go cheer on the CU Women’s Basketball Team or the CSU football team and find a spot playing any Michigan sports.

And if we had time to move slightly beyond the area: Cheese Importers in Longmont is an experience en route to Fort Collins before heading to FoCo for Old Town, Horsetooth Reservoir and music and burgers on the river at Mishiwaka. Also, a lazy day hanging in Lyons, again in a tube on a hot summer day, or listening to great music that is often passing through that area as well. A day trip to Estes Park and RMNP is easy from BoCo. Again, we are so lucky to have so many great things to do closer by!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My family: my husband, our children, my sisters and my friends are my foundation. Through school days, marriages, through raising children, through raising businesses and all the ups and downs, they steady me and I am forever grateful. I am also grateful for the extremely supportive business community we have in Superior, Colorado, and its Chamber.

Website: https://hartlegalsearch.my.canva.site/monahartllcmain

Instagram: @legalsearchmona

Linkedin: Mona Qureshi-Hart

Facebook: Mona Hart LLC

Youtube: @legalsearchmona

Other: TikTok: @legalsearchmona

Image Credits
Kerry Karamanian/Kerry Kara Photography, IP Watchdog Live