Fractional General Counsel
For companies that have outgrown calling outside counsel one matter at a time but are not ready to bring legal in-house, I serve as the general counsel function on a fractional basis.
There is a stage where a company's legal needs stop being occasional and start being continuous, and the old model of emailing a law firm whenever something comes up no longer fits. The contracts pile up, the compliance questions get more frequent, and decisions that used to be simple now carry real exposure. What the company needs at that point is not more outside counsel, it is a general counsel, and that is the function I provide without the cost and commitment of a full-time hire.
As your fractional general counsel I own the legal function. I draft, review, and negotiate the commercial agreements that run the business, I build the contract templates and playbooks that let your team move faster without losing consistency, and I stand up compliance and governance frameworks that fit how you actually operate. When a decision carries risk, I am the steady judgment in the room. The point is continuity: I learn your business once and apply that understanding to everything that follows, instead of coming up to speed from scratch on every matter.
Drafting, reviewing, and negotiating the agreements that run the business, from day-to-day vendor and customer contracts to high-value international licensing, development, and manufacturing agreements.
Templates, playbooks, and contract lifecycle management built so your team moves faster without losing consistency, and so the business depends less on outside counsel for routine work.
Standing up and running compliance that fits how the company actually operates, across US and international regulatory frameworks, informed by having owned that responsibility in regulated industries.
Assessing disputes and demand letters early, deciding what deserves a fight, and when a matter needs a litigator or specialist, selecting and directing outside counsel so the strategy and the bills stay under control.
Entity formation and reorganization, governance documents, and the structural choices, tax implications included, that are far easier to get right at the start than to fix later.
Decision rights, delegation of authority, and counsel to leadership and the board when a decision carries real exposure, with the deeper advisory work described on the Strategic Advisory page.
I have done this work from the inside. For eight years I served as in-house counsel to a global manufacturer, where I led legal strategy and contract management across international markets, negotiated high-value international licensing, development, and manufacturing agreements, and built the templates and playbooks that reduced the company's dependence on outside counsel. I know what the general counsel function demands because I have done that work from the in-house seat, and I know how to build the function so it serves the business rather than slowing it down.
The contract lifecycle management system I implemented in-house cut contract creation time in half across the company's international operations.
Alongside the in-house work, I co-founded and ran an energy venture for eight years, responsible for its legal, regulatory, and environmental compliance as an owner. That experience shapes how I advise. I have sat with the consequences of the decisions, not just the analysis of them, and I tend to give clients the answer an operator needs rather than the exhaustive memo a litigator might want. I also structure businesses from the ground up, advising founders on entity formation, governance, and the tax implications of how they organize.
Fractional means a recurring monthly arrangement sized to what the company actually needs, from a steady few hours a week to something closer to a part-time seat, and it can scale in either direction as the business changes. Most engagements begin with a short diagnostic of the contract stack and the legal function as it stands, which gives us both a clear picture of what needs attention first. From there the work runs on an agreed cadence: standing availability for the questions that cannot wait, and agreed priorities for the work that builds the function. The fee is set in the engagement agreement before work begins, so the cost is predictable in a way hourly billing never is.
Fractional general counsel work fits growing companies, founder-led businesses, and family-owned operations that need legal judgment as an ongoing part of the team. Manufacturing and energy are my home ground, and the work applies wherever a company has reached the point of needing a general counsel's continuity without a full-time seat. For multilingual matters I review documents in English, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish.
If your company has reached the point of needing a general counsel's judgment as a steady part of the team, let's discuss how a fractional arrangement would work.
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