We offer three General Counsel Services models, providing one or several qualified attorneys based on the timeframe, budget and express needs of each client. For companies undergoing a transition of leadership, experiencing rapid growth, or facing legal uncertainties in the wake of new regulations, a significant acquisition, or a change in business model, the Interim and Outside General Counsel Service models provide flexible support options and access to GCS attorneys for the advice and help they need, regardless of whether it’s a simple question or an urgent, complex and highly sensitive undertaking. The Enhanced Legal Services model, by comparison, provides highly skilled, subject-focused resources to an in-house team from lawyers who have been in their shoes. When needed, we also advise companies on building or reconfiguring their in-house legal team and help with staffing, organizational structure, and the delegation of responsibility.

We don’t learn as we go or offer impromptu advice without developing a complete understanding of a client’s business priorities. On the contrary, we take a comprehensive “whole business” approach, investing non-billable hours upfront to do a full inventory of our clients’ businesses, examining:

• Operating methods, market interests, product and consumer base.
• Leadership, employee infrastructure, policies and requirements.
• Risk profile, areas of legal and economic vulnerability.
• Strategic vision for the months, years, and decades ahead.

Though our GCS attorneys practice different legal disciplines, the common denominator is that each of us knows what it’s like to be part of a business unit versus a law firm. We’ve served as general counsel or in-house legal counsel for public- and private-sector clients, in national and foreign markets, and in every stage and facet of the company lifecycle, from distributor agreements, complex mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and spin-offs to strategic partnership negotiations and major dispute resolutions. For this reason, we are both pragmatists and skilled, forward-thinking strategists, on hand to facilitate as companies break ground on a new project or initiative. What’s more, our dual perspective as both outsider/insider enables us to pose difficult questions and challenge the status quo, if indeed it appears a novel approach is warranted.

Legal costs for compliance issues have been trending upward for the last decade, due in large part to regulatory changes at the state and federal level. These new regulations, coupled with other economic and geopolitical forces, have shaped today’s risk continuum for our GCS clients. To navigate the potential pitfalls and seize upon new market opportunities, companies need to work with a capable and forward-looking legal team. Our GCS team prides itself on being painstaking in our attention to detail; but at the same time, we are careful not to let an attorney’s natural aversion to risk interfere with productivity and profit-potential. We learn where a client is situated on the risk continuum and cater our approach to the growth mindset and outlook of its leadership.

When companies hire an attorney provisionally, often in a single isolated matter, he or she may be brand new to a business’s core function and lack incentive to think big picture. Worse, these one-and-done arrangements can result in additional fees, unnecessary costs, and, in extreme cases, protracted litigation. Even before billing clients, we put the time in to build trust, establish clear lines of communication, and learn everything we can about their business. We listen a great deal upfront because you know your business much better than we ever can. Downrange, as we’re more fully integrated into the strategy and decision-making process, we become better true team members, helping the business meet its goals and supporting in-house counsel more effectively and at lower costs.