7 Benefits of Fractional General Counsel Services

In today’s fast-paced business environment, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are increasingly turning to fractional general counsel (FGC) services to access high-quality legal expertise without the overhead costs of full-time counsel. An FGC is a highly experienced, C-suite-trusted business advisor who provides “get to yes” legal advice and services on a part-time basis and helps manage outside legal counsel to ensure the company receives the best value for its legal spend.

FGCs offer a unique blend of strategic partnership, affordability, and flexibility, providing SMBs with tailored legal advice and comprehensive support that aligns with their growth objectives and risk management needs. If you’re wondering whether an FGC is the right choice for your business, consider these seven key benefits of retaining a fractional general counsel:

1. One-Stop-Shop – FGCs, especially, those associated with a law firm, serve as a one-stop shop for SMBs by offering highly responsive, relational and comprehensive legal advice and resources on multiple areas including risk management, contract preparation, review and negotiation, employment issues, intellectual property matters and litigation strategy and pre-litigation dispute resolution. FGCs can manage outside lawyers or law firms, ensuring the highest efficiency and most value for a company’s legal spend. FGCs regularly serve as trusted advisors and counsel to business owners and the company’s leadership team on various issues. Unlike outside counsel (in the prevailing transactional and reactionary mode), FGCs do not need to be continually reeducated about the company’s risk appetite and strategic growth plans at the company’s expense. They’re not learning on your dime time and again.
2. Strategic Partnership – FGCs serve as strategic partners to the business owner or CEO, acting as an extension of the company’s internal team, building trust, and symbiotic, deeper relationships with the company. FGCs bring relevant, time-tested and practical advice from a seat at the leadership table, where they collaborate with the company’s leadership to align legal operations with daily business operations and strategic growth goals. FGCs are focused on becoming a “first call,” “consigliere,” and trusted advisor who values the relationship first and enjoys investing the time required to build trust and deeply understand their industry and their business. As proactive problem solvers trusted by their clients, FGCs are often consulted earlier in the process to better assist in proactively diagnosing emerging risks and identifying potential opportunities for their clients and connecting them with outside resources as needed.
3. Affordability – FGCs are a more affordable option than hiring a full-time general counsel, especially for SMBs. They provide the broad expertise and strategic, business-oriented mindset of a full-time general counsel but at a fraction of the cost (including benefits), and when the FGC is associated with a law firm, they also effectively bring with them the deep bench of experts and resources of a law firm. Additionally, they can work under a monthly retainer for a defined scope of work, resulting in fewer billing surprises, and ensuring that that outside counsel services consistently add value to the company. The monthly flat fee structure effectively removes the specter of the meter, which results in the company’s team members being encouraged to contact and consult with legal counsel.  This also deepens the relationship and the FGC’s knowledge of the company.
4. Flexibility and Scalability – The FGC synthesizes the highly relational and more nimble approach of a smaller law firm with the greater responsiveness and extensive resources of a larger law firm. FGCs can also help balance the cyclical nature of legal work, ramping up services when demand is high and entering maintenance mode during slower periods.  Like most fractional executives, FGCs will ultimately work themselves out of a job when the company is financially at scale and culturally ready to on board a full-time general counsel or chief legal officer to its leadership team.
5. Specialist Expertise – FGCs differentiate themselves in the marketplace from other attorneys as deep generalists, not focused specialists who can identify a company’s risks and potential opportunities more broadly and connect the dots with internal or external legal and non-legal resources to assist in advising on them. This unique approach, especially when backed by the FGC’s law firm, provides SMBs with ready access to targeted, time-tested expert advice traditionally reserved for larger companies. An FGC also empowers chief executives and their teams to focus more on building the business and tending to daily operations versus losing sleep over potential risk blind spots. An FGC can effectively oversee and ensure the efficiency of various transaction, including M&A transactions, corporate restricting, revamping procurement systems, compartmentalizing risk and operating off the company’s own documents for downstream transactions.
6. Access to Extensive Resources – An FGC backed by a law firm is a constant student of the law firm’s experts and resources, and masterfully connects the dots between these experts and the client. FGCs provide the necessary insight into the company to ensure any advice and recommendations are understandable and implementable. This better ensures the delivery of the advice and resources necessary to timely address the company’s needs.
7. Adaptability – As deep generalists, FGCs are more nimble, adaptable, and can provide flexible legal support tailored to a company’s evolving risk appetite and strategic growth objectives. Based on their prior or current work with other clients, they can provide lessons learned and best practices from those experiences. FGCs can provide ongoing part-time support on-site or virtually (or both). This adaptability makes FGCs an ideal solution for growing SMBs with cyclical cash flow or new legal complexities.

Should you consider an FGC? 

The FGC model was developed to address the needs of SMBs who wanted trusted advisors in the legal space that knew their business, had broad access to and could successfully manage outside resources for timely and value-added legal advice and services.  Companies that benefit most from hiring an FGC are typically SMBS, startups, and growing companies with $5 million to up to $400 million in annual revenue. Companies scaling for rapid growth, entering new markets, ramping up the hiring of new employees or facing increasing regulatory requirements especially benefit from a FGC’s business experience and connectivity to outside specialized legal advice and work product. Additionally, businesses in industries with fluctuating legal demands—such as technology, transportation, hospitality/retail, manufacturing, healthcare, or financial services—often find FGCs to be a value-added solution for getting timely advice to address complex legal and risk matters without the cost of a full-time hire.

Written by Todd Wilkowski.
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