Nicole Auerbach co-founded and leads our integrated law firm at Elevate. This unique combination of a law company and a law firm blends high-quality legal expertise with Elevate’s expertise in operations, processes, and technology to provide offerings that do not exist via a traditional law firm or an ALSP alone.  Elevate’s law firm handles business-as-usual matters at scale, including litigation portfolios or portion of litigation cases (i.e., research, discovery responses, brief writing), subpoena and law enforcement responses, compliance, corporate formation, and more. Nicole is a member of Elevate’s Executive Leadership Team (ELT).

Nicole is known for her innovations in the legal industry, having founded Valorem Law Group in 2008 to pioneer the alternative fee movement (AFAs); she is an expert in bringing new legal models to the market. Before forming Valorem, Nicole practised for 15 years at an AmLaw 100 firm in Chicago, where she was a partner in the litigation department. She represents clients in federal and state courts and arbitrations nationwide. Nicole is currently focused on developing and training AI tools to offer unique services to customers that substantially reduce the cost and the time spent on several aspects of litigation.

Her accolades include 16 consecutive years as a Super Lawyers ‘Top 50 Lawyers in Illinois’ (2007 – present), Crain’s Chicago Business ‘Notable Gen X Leaders in Law’ (2019), and ‘Most Influential Women Attorneys in Chicago’ (2017). In 2022, Nicole was named “One of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in Illinois” by Super Lawyers and one of “Forty Illinois Attorneys Under 40 to Watch” (2005) by the Law Bulletin Publishing Company. In 2017, Nicole obtained one of the top 11 verdicts in Illinois.

Nicole is a co-founder of the Coalition of Women in Law, which has chapters in Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C. She is also an arbitrator through the American Arbitration Association and a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management. Nicole regularly speaks and writes on issues regarding innovation in the legal industry.