Fractional GC for Founder-Led Companies
I've been the GC at companies where signed contracts still had redlines, monthly outside counsel bills ran six figures for routine work, and legal debt blocked exits because no one knew what needed fixing or had authority to fix it.
I'm the lawyer founder-led companies bring in when they know their legal situation is worse than it should be, but they don't have time to diagnose it or resources to waste on the wrong solution.
I've built legal functions from scratch in companies that should have had them years earlier. I've cut outside counsel spend by 90%+ by building proper internal systems. I've identified when legal problems are actually culture problems and advised founders accordingly.
Your outside counsel bills are out of control
You're spending $15K-$50K monthly on outside counsel for work that feels routine. Every contract goes out for review. Every question becomes a billable call. You suspect you're overpaying but you don't know if this is normal or if there's a better way.
What I've seen:
I recently stepped into a company spending $150K monthly on outside counsel for non-litigation work. The prior GC had been outsourcing everything from routine contract reviews, to standard template questions, and basic compliance matters. The firm relationships were good, but the dependency was unsustainable.
Within 90 days, I cut that spend to $10K monthly. Not by switching to cheaper lawyers or cutting corners, by building the internal systems that eliminated the need to outsource routine decisions.
I audited every open matter and outside counsel relationship. Built a triage system to separate what actually required external expertise from what could be handled with proper templates and internal judgment. Created a template library and approval processes. Established spend controls and firm management protocols.
Cost savings wasn't the goal, it was the byproduct of having someone internal who knew what actually needed a lawyer versus what needed a process.
What this pattern costs you:
Most companies in this situation are overpaying by 60-90%, but the real cost is velocity. When every contract requires outside review, deals slow down, and when every question requires a memo, decisions get deferred and your legal setup becomes a bottleneck instead of infrastructure.
What fixing it looks like:
I become your day-to-day legal decision-maker for operational matters. I audit what's currently getting farmed out and why. I build the templates, playbooks, and triage systems that let you handle routine matters internally. I manage the outside counsel relationships for what genuinely requires external expertise, like complex litigation, novel regulatory issues, major transactions.
Typical engagement: 3-4 months to stabilize and build systems, then ongoing retainer (15-20 hours monthly) to maintain them and handle day-to-day decisions.
You need to build a legal function but don't know how
You just closed a funding round or your investors are telling you to build an executive leadership team. You know you need legal infrastructure but you're not sure if that means full-time GC, fractional support, or something else. You don't have time to figure it out and you don't want your investors installing someone who reports to them instead of you.
What I've seen:
I've been the first GC at companies that were 20+ years old. Post-PE acquisition, and no legal function despite decades in business. Contracts being negotiated by unauthorized personnel, no template library, no approval processes, no vendor management. Just ad hoc decisions and occasional outside counsel for acquisitions.
I built the entire legal function from scratch. Established contract templates and negotiation playbooks, and implemented a contract management system to make it all scalable. Set up vendor management and insurance portfolio oversight. Created board-ready compliance roadmaps. Managed complex litigation that had been running for years with no internal oversight. And trained the team on what they could handle versus what needed escalation.
The function had to work at scale immediately. There was no runway to learn the business or build credibility slowly. Situational fluency allowed me to understand the terrain quickly, establish authority without formal organizational support, and navigate the politics of PE sponsor expectations versus founder control.
What this pattern costs you:
Get the structure wrong and you either hire too senior too early (wasting $380K on someone who's bored), hire too junior and create legal debt that costs 10x to fix later, or structure the role to fail and churn through lawyers every 12-18 months.
I've seen all three. The last one is most common: a role designed to absorb responsibility without authority, reporting to someone who wants a scapegoat rather than a strategic partner. That's a guaranteed revolving door.
What fixing it looks like:
I help you map what legal actually needs to own at your stage, who it reports to, and what authority comes with the role. Sometimes that's fractional support for 6-12 months while you scale. Sometimes it's interim coverage while you search for a permanent hire. Sometimes it's building the function and handing it off when you're ready for full-time.
I can also evaluate candidates your investors suggest. Some are excellent, but too often they are there to protect the board, not you. I help you maintain founder control over who sits in your legal seat.
Typical engagement: 4-6 months to build core infrastructure, then either transition to lower-touch retainer, handoff to permanent hire, or continuation as fractional GC depending on your trajectory.
Something's broken but you can't diagnose what
You know your legal situation isn't right but you can't articulate what's actually wrong. Contracts take forever to close but you don't know if that's normal. Legal keeps becoming a bottleneck but you're not sure if you need different lawyers or different processes. Your investors are asking about compliance things you don't understand. Outside counsel bills feel expensive but you have no benchmark.
What I've seen:
I've sat on boards where the CFO complained about "immoral" legal bills but refused to resource internal legal. Watched hundreds of thousands get burned on preventable outside counsel spend because the decision-maker wouldn't address the root cause. The problem wasn't the outside lawyers, it was the structural dependency on them, and no one inside the company who knew how and when to call out over-billing.
I've walked into situations where the legal dysfunction was a symptom of culture problems. Leadership wanted someone to absorb chaos without giving them authority to fix it. Vendor relationships were entrenched for the wrong reasons and legal oversight threatened those arrangements. Or the founder had been making all legal decisions for so long that delegating felt like loss of control.
Pattern recognition includes knowing when legal problems are actually culture problems, and being honest about which ones you can fix.
What this pattern costs you:
You waste time and money on solutions that don't address the actual problem, hire a lawyer when you need a process, or implement a process when you need a culture shift. You keep searching for the right person when the role is structured to fail.
What fixing it looks like:
First engagement is diagnostic. 30 days, fixed fee. I audit your current legal setup: spend patterns, contract templates, outside counsel relationships, regulatory gaps, organizational structure around legal decisions.
You get a full assessment that tells you:
Whether your legal spend is appropriate or extractive
Where your legal debt is hiding (contract templates, regulatory compliance, calculated indifference to dysfunction)
What needs immediate attention versus what can wait
Whether you need full-time, fractional, better outside counsel management, or structural changes before any of those will work
Then we decide together whether ongoing support makes sense. Sometimes the diagnostic is enough; you know what to fix and can execute it yourself. Sometimes it reveals problems that require sustained work. And sometimes it shows legal isn't the bottleneck and you need to address something else first.
I've been general counsel for global healthcare and technology companies for 25+ years. I've built legal departments from scratch, navigated VC and PE board dynamics, and stabilized legal functions in companies ranging from post-acquisition chaos to pre-exit scaling.
I work with founder-led companies in healthcare, healthtech, and SaaS, particularly those navigating evolving regulations around telehealth, wearables, digital health apps, and AI integration.
I'm based on the East Coast, work with companies nationwide, and operate on retainer or project basis, not hourly rates.
How this works
Retainer model: Simple monthly retainers for ongoing support. Flat fees for scoped projects like diagnostics or function builds. No hourly billing. No surprise invoices. You know what legal costs each month.
Engagement flexibility: Month-to-month retainers, no long-term commitments. Scale up for major initiatives (financing rounds, M&A), scale down when things stabilize. Most retainers start at 4- 8 days a month and flex based on your needs.
When I walk away: I won't waste your time pretending legal fixes can solve culture problems. If the role is structured to fail, I'll tell you what needs to change and whether it's worth attempting. If leadership won't resource legal properly, I'll advise on the pattern you're creating and exit before becoming another churn statistic.
First step: Schedule 20 minutes. I'll ask about your current legal setup, identify the top 2-3 issues that need attention, and tell you whether this is a legal problem or something else. You'll know exactly what needs fixing and what it costs to fix properly whether we work together or not.