General Counsel Services
A lot of companies find themselves at a stage where they regularly need a lawyer — to review a contract, write a letter, register a trademark, or advise on an HR or compliance issue — but they’re not ready to hire one full time. Sending everything out to a big firm may get you the work of several different lawyers, each specializing in a different area and giving you more advice, redlines, and/or billable hours than you need. Sending everything to the lawyer that handled your one-time tax or real estate issue may not get you the necessary level of expertise.
You need one attorney who can look at all your legal needs at once, assess your risk holistically, and allocate time, energy, and resources where they are most helpful. That’s precisely what an in-house attorney is trained to do, and that’s what I’ve done for most of my career at companies of all sizes. I’ve been a start-up’s first legal hire, and I’ve joined international teams of lawyers at multi-national corporations. I’ve also been a fractional general counsel, providing part-time in-house type work to more than one company, including an international mining tech company who retained me for two days a week to handle its North American operations.
When you retain me as a fractional general counsel, you get a partner. Instead of just reacting when legal issues come up, I help you plan for the issues you’re likely to face and avoid facing the ones you don’t want. For example, I can:
Draft contract templates and negotiation playbooks that are tailored to your specific risks and business strategies.
Create policies and standard operating procedures (SOPs) to avoid infringement and infractions.
Train your workforce on the policies and SOPs I create and other compliance matters.
Draft your website terms of use and privacy policy.
Draft your employee manual and other human resources policies.
Advise HR on hiring, firing, rifs, overtime, and wage and hour issues.
Meet regularly with executives and directors to align legal and business objectives.
Advise on when specialized outside counsel is needed.
Find, retain, and manage specialized outside counsel to make sure you are getting their best work, performed efficiently, and audit their bills.