Fractional General Counsel for growing businesses
A fractional General Counsel (GC) provides ongoing senior legal leadership for part of the working week or month. It gives a business access to experienced legal judgment without requiring a full-time hire.
Altern8 works with founders, scale-ups, in-house legal leaders and investor-backed businesses that need senior legal input, but not a full-time hire.
When businesses use it
- You need senior legal input but not a full-time hire
- You are building or reshaping your legal function
- You are preparing for investment, acquisition or exit
- You are scaling operations or expanding internationally
- You want to control external legal spend and know when to instruct outside counsel
What it can cover
- Ongoing senior legal leadership, scaled to the rhythm of your business
- Assessing priorities and managing immediate legal work
- Introducing suitable processes and legal playbooks
- Managing external counsel
- Supporting contracts and governance
- Identifying legal risk
- Helping the business understand what its longer-term legal team should look like
How the engagement works
Support can be structured around a particular number of days each week, an initial trial period, or a changing level of demand. You do not need to predict the entire requirement at the outset.
We agree a clear commercial structure before the engagement begins. This may be based on an hourly or daily rate, an agreed working pattern, a defined project, or another arrangement suited to the requirement.
Scope depends on the business, the context, the urgency, and the type of expertise required. It can increase, reduce, or extend, subject to the consultant’s availability and the notice arrangements agreed in advance.
Experienced legal leaders
Many of our lawyers have built legal functions in the past, often more than once, and are well-acquainted with the challenges inherent in establishing a new legal function.
An Altern8 consultant knows where to optimally draw the line between dealing with a matter themselves and instructing external counsel, optimising your legal spend.
Questions about fractional General Counsel
Support can be structured around a particular number of days each week. The working pattern is agreed with you and the consultant before the engagement begins, and can be reviewed as your needs change, subject to the consultant’s availability.
A fractional General Counsel provides ongoing senior legal support for part of the working week or month. An interim General Counsel joins for a defined period or purpose, such as covering an absence or a transition.
The two are not mutually exclusive, and we can help structure the arrangement around what your business actually needs.
Yes. We can provide an experienced fractional or interim legal leader who can assess priorities and manage immediate legal work, while creating the foundations of an effective legal function.
When the requirement becomes sufficiently established, we can also help define the permanent role and support the transition to a long-term legal structure.
Before work begins, Altern8 agrees the scope, fees, expected working pattern, invoicing schedule, notice provisions, and payment terms with the client. The cost reflects both the consultant’s remuneration and Altern8’s management of the search, matching, contracting, payment, and ongoing engagement.
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Tell us what you need
Tell us about the challenge, transaction, or period of change ahead, and we will help you identify the most practical solution.