Login | May 05, 2025
Former Brouse partner opens law practice
SHERRY KARABIN
Legal News Reporter
Published: April 6, 2017
He’s been a partner at two major Akron area law firms and co-founded several local businesses, now Mark Krohn is carving out a new path as a boutique business law firm owner.
The Law Office of Mark E. Krohn opened on March 15 at 1530 W. Market St. in Akron.
Krohn, who has been a corporate lawyer for more than 20 years, said his work for clients involves two primary components: “I help businesses generate opportunity and revenue on the front end and then I help them preserve wealth on the back end.
“That is what business owners want today, a business partner that can walk hand in hand with them through their company’s life cycle, not just help them with contracts and issues from time to time,” he said.
Born in Dallas, Pennsylvania, Krohn began his career at a small firm in Cleveland after graduating from Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 1996.
He then came to Akron, working with industrialists Tony Manna and David Brennan at the law firm of Amer Cunningham Brennan Co.
“Dave and Tony were looking for a young, aggressive corporate lawyer,” he said. “It was the best opportunity a young lawyer could ever have.”
Krohn continued to work with Manna and Brennan at Brennan, Manna & Diamond, the law firm they started with attorney Jack Diamond.
In all he said he spent 16 years with the Brennan and Manna family of companies not only serving as a corporate attorney, but as chief operating officer for one of David Brennan’s companies for several years.
In 2014, Krohn left Brennan, Manna & Diamond where he was a partner in the corporate transactional area to join Brouse McDowell.
“That was the most difficult decision I have ever had to make professionally,” said Krohn. “I learned so much there and felt so grateful to Dave, Tony and Jack Diamond for all that they taught me and the experiences I had, but in my heart I knew it was the right decision.
“I strongly considered starting my own practice at that time, but something held me back.”
By the end of 2016, Krohn said he was ready to open his own practice. He spent the early part of 2017 putting the pieces in place.
In addition to his legal career Krohn has started and led a number of business endeavors, including serving as co-founder and chairman of three local companies: Acquire Investments, which worked with small and medium-sized businesses, locating capital and assisting them to grow and thrive; Focal Point Social Media, a digital marketing agency, which he said “drives the three things that businesses want most, engagement, leads and conversions” and Ascension HR, which focuses on helping companies find “their greatest productivity through the development of world class culture and team alignment.”
His involvement in Acquire ended in August 2015, but he continues to serve as chairman of Focal Point and Ascension HR.
Krohn’s new law office is located in the same place as Focal Point and Ascension HR, which he said is not an accident.
“Combining these three entities in one location allows a collaboration and synergy that is palpable and magical for business,” he said. “The more my clients of one business learn about the services of the others, the more they take advantage of those services and the happier they are as a business and client,” said Krohn.
“With the exception of just a few services, my firm and companies will be able to accommodate just about any need that a growing business or a business that wants to grow might have,” he said. “If we don’t do it, we likely know and have a relationship with someone that does it very well.”
Krohn said his firm takes a new approach to client relationships and pricing.
“We meet with the business owner and determine what their business and legal needs are and come up with an annual price paid monthly that includes just about everything with some very limited exceptions,” he said.
“That way no business owner ever has to second guess a decision to contact one of its key business advisors, its attorney, or has to worry about being billed when making a call, sending an e-mail or needing assistance, which more times than not keeps the correspondence from occurring.”
On opening day Krohn hired his first associate, Mitchell Kolesar, an attorney with legal and business experience, which Krohn said made him “a perfect addition to the team.”
A native of Akron, Kolesar graduated from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 2014.
Prior to starting at Krohn’s firm, Kolesar was working as an in-house attorney at Merrymeeting Group in Independence, Ohio, which focuses on the acquisition and development of intellectual property driven businesses in the franchising, technology and B-to-B service sectors.
“My experience perfectly paralleled what Mark was looking for and planned to do as my experience with the Merrymeeting Group was not just legal, but operational as well,” said Kolesar.
“I am so excited by this opportunity to create something new and meaningful with Mark and really bring a level of business advisory services, legal and operational, that I don’t believe Akron has seen before,” said Kolesar.
Krohn said his plan is to “build a culture, firm and environment clients love, can’t live without and crave more of.”
He also wants to create a place that allows lawyers to “work hand in hand with clients as true business partners, not just owner and hired gun.”