Understory Advising PLLC is a one-attorney firm. Every engagement runs through Morgan Bobadilla, Esq., who founded the firm to provide the kind of legal support founder-led businesses actually need and rarely get: senior-level counsel, on a flat fee, from someone who has worked inside a business and knows what the legal department looks like from the other side.
View more of Morgan’s background on LinkedIn
The Hybrid Perspective
Morgan spent over a decade as an in-house attorney for global manufacturing and industrial companies, most recently as Director and General Counsel for a Tacoma-based manufacturer. In that role she ran a legal department responsible for commercial contracts, employment and labor matters, regulatory compliance (including ITAR, EAR, FAR, and FCPA), anti-bribery, antitrust, compliance & ethics, supply chain risk, and government contracting. She knows what a real legal function looks like because she built and ran one.
She has also owned and operated her own small business, which means she understands the other side of the conversation. The cash flow pressure, the 6 a.m. spreadsheet review, the decision about whether to hire someone this quarter or next, the commercial lease that was signed in a hurry, the employment question that showed up on a Sunday night. The firm is built on the assumption that these are the conditions founders are actually working in.
Most lawyers serving small businesses have never run one. Most General Counsels with Morgan's regulatory and transactional background are not accessible to small and mid-size businesses. Understory exists in that gap.
Professional Background
Morgan is licensed to practice in Washington State, where the firm is based. Oregon admission by motion is in progress and expected in the first quarter of 2027.
Before founding Understory Advising PLLC, Morgan served as Director, General Counsel at Toray Composite Materials America, a subsidiary of a global manufacturing company, where she managed the full scope of the legal function for the U.S. business. Her earlier career included in-house and advisory roles across commercial transactions, regulatory compliance, and employment and labor law in technical and industrial industries.
Her substantive practice areas include:
Commercial contracts and transactions. Drafting, negotiation, and review of vendor agreements, master service agreements, customer contracts, distribution agreements, and strategic partnerships.
Employment and labor. Handbooks, agreements, policies, hiring and termination practices, and employment-related risk management.
Regulatory compliance. Export controls (ITAR and EAR), FCPA and anti-corruption, FAR and government contracting compliance, antitrust, and industry-specific regulatory programs.
Governance and structure. Entity formation, ownership and founder agreements, board and shareholder governance, and M&A due diligence.
Supply chain and operations. Supplier agreements, continuity risk, commercial lease negotiation, and vendor oversight.
How Morgan Works
Engagements run on flat fees or monthly retainers. Scope is defined in writing before work begins. Clients know what they're paying and what they're getting.
Advisory conversations happen in the Tacoma office, as walking meetings in the Stadium District or at Chambers Bay, or remotely over Google Meet. Morgan takes a practical approach to legal work. The goal of most engagements is to move the business from a vague sense of legal exposure to a clear picture of what the actual risks are, what the priorities should be, and what to do next.