Managing Attorney

PL's Managing Attorney Aida Poulsen, in addition to a legal profession, is a business-savvy executive. Beyond litigation, Aida has launched and scaled multiple ventures—including law firms, a management consulting company, and an international trading platform—growing them from the ground up to significant market share; holding positions from CEO and board chair to venture capital and private equity investments.

Law in Motion

Among her most notable ventures are Whales Legal, a law firm in banking mergers and acquisitions, and Whales Group, a proprietary banking M&A trading platform. Whales was featured in Forbes, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and at major economic forums for its impact on the indirect banking M&A market. Its technology included a multi-layered security system, with confidential core databases kept entirely separate from standard office networks and hardware.

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Since founding Poulsen Law, a complex litigation boutique operating in New York, California and other states, Aida has led the firm in managing over 100 complex, expert-intensive cases. The firm has secured millions of dollars in recoveries, initiated class actions, and established collaborations with leading national class-action firms—all within just a few years of its inception.​​

Human Rights Legacy

Aida credits her fervor to a deep humility for lifelong learning, the cultural DNA of her mother—an unyielding human rights attorney and bar chair later in her career—and the sharp intellect and exceptional education of her grandfather, a lawyer and judge. She began her own legal career in the USSR, litigating criminal and civil cases, up to the Supreme Court. With the onset of Perestroika, she taught herself English and took on business litigation and international trade arbitration.

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She was a winner of the Presidents’ Management Training Initiative, organized under the auspices of President George Bush, Prime Minister Tony Blair, and President Boris Yeltsin. She earned it for transforming a domestic airport into an international one, enabling her to launch her own international charter flights.​​

Ethics Under Pressure

​​A vocal critic of Vladimir Putin’s regime, Aida published opposition essays—including on the politically charged trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky; from 2002 to 2007, she served pro bono as President of the British Alumni Club at the British Embassy in Moscow, where she provided a speaking platform and organized embassy forums for leading dissidents—at the risk to her freedom. Among her guest speakers were:

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• Egor Gaidar, Acting Prime Minister under Boris Yeltsin

• Garry Kasparov, World Chess Champion and opposition leader

• Valeria Novodvorskaya, Aida’s personal hero and an iconic human rights activist jailed 17 times for anti-Soviet dissent.​

 

As political danger escalated, Aida was forced to flee Russia—a move she accomplished by gaining admission at Stanford University.

Silicon Valley Ethos

After completing an executive program at Stanford Graduate School of Business (2006), she worked with a number of tech startups in Silicon Valley, serving as both an investor and CEO.

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She continues her executive education at other top institutions, including:

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• Yale Publishing Program, as an AAME Scholar (American Association of Magazine Editors)

• MIT Media Lab’s Cryptocurrency Program, taught by SEC Chair Gary Gensler

• Additional coursework at Stanford GSB, Yale, and other graduate business programs​.

Perspective​

A lifelong advocate for healthy living—as well as a figure skater and skier—Aida credits much of her resilience, focus, and clarity in approaching challenges to the rigor of athletic training.

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Her humility and ability to connect—with clients, her teams, her charitable projects, the people she supports, and even adversaries—stem from a guiding belief she coined from Bulgakov: “There are no bad people—only the unfortunate,” with the idea that misfortune, rather than innate malice, often drives human behavior.