Fractional general counsel
Legal leadership.
Part of your team.
When legal needs someone to set priorities, advise executives and connect the work across your business, define a leadership role. Find experienced legal professionals through Lawtrades for a fractional or interim engagement.
Start with the responsibility
Do you need a leader,
or a specific assignment?
A fractional general counsel takes on an agreed ongoing leadership role for part of their working time. An interim general counsel covers a temporary leadership need; the agreed schedule may be part-time or full-time.
Your first legal leader
For a founder or executive team managing recurring legal needs without an internal lead. Define who will set legal priorities, advise the business and coordinate specialist work.
Continuity for an existing team
During a leave, departure or leadership search, specify the team, executive responsibilities and decisions an interim will take on. Agree a handoff back to the returning or incoming leader.
Focused legal support
If you need one negotiation, a defined transaction or more capacity in an established queue, a narrower assignment may fit. Explore commercial counsel or the relevant specialist before choosing a broad leadership role.
For VC, PE and portfolio teams: introduce the company’s leaders and scope each company’s engagement separately. A shared investor does not make the companies’ legal priorities or responsibilities identical.
Make ownership explicit
Write the mandate
before agreeing the time.
Choose the responsibilities your business needs, then discuss the experience and availability required to carry them.
Executive advice and priorities
Name the business decisions counsel will advise on, the leaders they will work with and the meetings they should join. Distinguish legal recommendations from decisions the company retains.
Work and people to lead
Identify the internal team, important commercial matters, governance work and upcoming milestones. Specify what counsel will handle personally and what they will coordinate with specialists.
Authority and escalation
Agree who can approve a contracting position, engage outside counsel or authorize spend. If the role includes a formal appointment or signing authority, address that explicitly.
Capacity and continuity
Confirm working time, response expectations, competing deadlines, proposed fees and how extra work is approved. Include a review date and a usable handoff when the arrangement ends.
Fictional example / A starting mandate
Turn “we need a GC”
into work someone can discuss.
A growing software company has recurring customer negotiations and an upcoming financing. Its operations lead organizes documents; the CEO currently chooses which legal requests get attention. The company wants a legal leader, not just another person reviewing agreements.
Proposed first-month responsibilities
- Legal lead
- Establish a priority list with the CEO; identify decisions needed on the most important customer negotiations; coordinate the financing request list with separately engaged financing counsel.
- Company owners
- The CEO makes business decisions and approves outside-counsel spend. Operations maintains the records and flags missing documents. Sales supplies deal context and upcoming deadlines.
- Working output
- A short weekly list showing each priority, its owner, the next decision and the date it is needed. At the end of the month, review what remains unassigned and whether the agreed time is sufficient.
- Before starting
- Confirm relevant experience, jurisdictions, availability and fees with each lawyer. Agree who retains financing counsel, the boundary between the two legal roles and what happens when negotiations and diligence compete for time.
This is an illustrative mandate to discuss, not an offered service package, a promised delivery schedule or an arrangement accepted by a lawyer.
Already comparing proposals? Use the worked fractional-GC proposal comparison to check responsibility and capacity against the same workload.
Before you get started
Discuss the fit
behind the title.
What experience should we look for?
Look for responsibility that matches the role: advising executives, leading an internal team, setting priorities or managing outside counsel. Former GC, chief legal officer, senior legal executive and law-firm partner experience may be relevant, but the title alone does not establish operating fit. Discuss your industry, jurisdictions and expected work directly.
Can an interim lead our existing legal team?
That can be part of the engagement. Define reporting lines, executive responsibilities, authority and the transition plan. Confirm that the candidate’s leadership experience and availability fit the team you need them to lead.
How should we handle outside counsel and fees?
Identify existing firms and specialist matters before agreeing the role. Specify who briefs and manages each firm and who approves its engagement and spend. Review the general counsel’s proposed fee arrangement, included responsibilities and capacity separately from specialist costs.
The next step
Bring the role
you need filled.
Share your business stage, current team, first priorities and working pattern. Discuss relevant experience and the mandate before choosing a professional.
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