Meet Erika

Erika Cole

Erika E. Cole, known as The Church Attorney®, has over 24 years of experience advising churches and faith-based organizations in a broad range of legal matters, including charitable giving, governance, contracts, and mergers.

While in private practice, Erika partnered with ministries to address everything from church planting, new leadership transitions, and buying and selling property to succession planning and helping leadership address the spectrum of governance matters. She has also assisted churches and ministries obtain 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status with a 100% success rate.

Whether handling an unexpected legal crisis, legal audit, or helping churches buy, sell, and construct property, Erika’s philosophy remained the same: providing excellence, diligence, and counsel across the board.

Erika has used her platform to help denominations, churches, ministries, and church leaders with their most challenging issues. Her heart has been to provide keen legal insight, ensuring that the church’s legal affairs are in order so they can focus on spreading their message, serving their communities, and growing their ministries.

Erika launched The Church Compliance Conference, an event that has existed for over 15 years and reached thousands of church leaders with a forum for arriving at a deeper understanding of how churches can respond and adapt to the rapidly changing legal environment.

Since 2021, Erika has hosted the Church Law Podcast, a Church Law & Tax podcast on the Christianity Today network. It has been a top 5% podcast on Apple and Spotify, thanks to loyal listeners!

Seeing the need to develop the next generation of attorneys in the area of church law, Erika uses her years of teaching as an adjunct professor to create and teach The Church Attorney® Masterclass, an online class for attorneys. And in response to the extreme challenges faced by pastors experiencing the pain of burnout, Erika launched Take the Next Call®, a course for pastors and other church leaders who are burnt out and looking for life balance.

Her calling to support churches and empower church leaders is rooted in her life as a deeply committed Believer who was raised in the church (and remains committed today), who served in international missions, and who loves the body of Christ.

Erika and her husband Brien have been married for almost 16 years and are in the busy years of raising two school-aged sons.