OutsourcedGeneral Counsel.
The senior legal and commercial mind every growing business needs — embedded in your leadership team, without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire. We own the work, not just the advice.
An outsourced General Counsel is a senior commercial lawyer who does the work an in-house General Counsel would do — contracts, disputes, governance and deals — on a fixed monthly fee instead of a salaried appointment. Dinmore Bell provides that function to founder-led businesses in the UK and internationally, owning each matter end to end and bringing in specialists where one is needed, from £1,500 per month.
What your General Counsel actually does
Contracts & commercial
Drafting, negotiating and managing the agreements that run your business — and owning every renewal, break and review so value never leaks. Customer terms, supplier agreements, distribution, licensing, employment, and the framework contracts underneath them. Most businesses do not lose money on the contract they argued over. They lose it on the one nobody read before signing, the auto-renewal nobody diarised, and the liability cap that went unnegotiated because the deal was urgent. We hold the whole contract estate in one place, know what is in it, and tell you what it commits you to while you can still change it.
Disputes & problem-solving
When suppliers, customers or counterparties become a problem, we step in and resolve it commercially — keeping you out of court wherever possible. That means taking the correspondence off your desk on the day it turns difficult, working out what the outcome is genuinely worth, and pursuing that rather than the argument. Most commercial disputes are settled by whoever is better prepared and less emotional about it. We can be both, because it is not our business being attacked. Where a matter truly needs regulated conduct, we instruct specialists and stay accountable for the result.
Governance & regulatory
Board and corporate housekeeping, regulatory questions, banking and compliance — handled quietly and properly, so the business stays clean. Share registers that match reality, minutes that exist, filings made on time, and a data position that survives a customer’s due diligence questionnaire. None of this wins a week. All of it decides what happens when an investor, a lender or an acquirer asks to see the file — and fixing it at that point, under time pressure and in front of the other side, costs many times what keeping it right would have.
Deals, growth & protection
New revenue, partnerships, transactions and expansion — structured and executed — plus protecting the IP and value you have built. Joint ventures, reseller and agency arrangements, funding rounds, acquisitions, and entering new markets. The protective half matters as much as the ambitious one: knowing that the code, the brand and the customer data your business runs on are owned by the company, and not by a founder, a contractor or an agency that built something years ago. Ownership assumed is ownership unproven, and it gets tested at precisely the wrong moment.
When a business needs one
When a business needs one.
Few businesses decide they need a General Counsel. What happens instead is that the absence of one starts costing money, usually in one of five ways. If more than one of these is familiar, the question is no longer whether to fix it.
Contracts get signed before anyone reads them
The deal is urgent, the terms arrive as a PDF the night before, and somebody signs rather than hold it up. That works until the one that mattered.
A dispute is eating the founder’s week
The most expensive hour in a growing business belongs to the person running it, and a difficult counterparty will take as many of them as you let them have.
Someone has asked to see the contract file
An investor, a lender, an acquirer or your largest customer. What they find, and how quickly you can produce it, moves the number and the timetable.
Nobody can say who owns what
The code, the brand, the customer data. Recorded properly at the time it costs nothing. Reconstructed years later, against a deadline, it costs a great deal.
You are moving into something new
A new market, a regulated product, a first international customer. The obligations change on the day you start, and nobody in the building yet knows how.
The case for outsourcing
Senior counsel, without the senior salary.
The right comparison is not our fee against a law firm’s hourly rate. It is our fee against the fully-loaded cost of the senior hire you would otherwise make.
Fully-loaded annual cost of a full-time General Counsel in the UK
Typical saving versus that hire, with Dinmore Bell
Per month — embedded counsel and contract management, no overhead
How we are different
Built by entrepreneurs — not a law firm.
We avoid litigation by design
Court is the most expensive way to be right. We resolve commercially wherever the outcome allows, and we say so before the costs start rather than after. A firm paid by the hour has no structural reason to tell you a dispute is worth settling early; we are paid a fixed monthly fee, so a matter that drags is our problem as much as yours. That alignment is the whole point. We will tell you when a fight is worth having, and we will tell you just as plainly when winning it costs more than losing it.
We control the specialists
When regulated or specialist work is genuinely needed, we coordinate our bank of trusted advisers and manage them — so costs stay controlled and everything is translated back into a commercial decision. You brief us once. We choose who is right for the matter, agree the scope and the fee before it starts, hold them to both, and read what comes back. What reaches you is not a twelve-page advice note; it is what that note means and what we suggest you do about it. The range of an in-house function, without having to assemble one.
Discretion is the product
We hold our clients’ confidences absolutely and never name who we act for. That discretion is exactly why founders trust us with what matters most. There is no client list on this website and there will not be one. The problems that reach us are often the ones a founder has not yet raised with their board, their investors or their co-founder — a dispute with the largest customer, a falling-out over ownership, a letter from a regulator. Work of that kind only ever arrives if the person bringing it is certain it goes no further.
Where specialists come in
Dinmore Bell operates as a retained legal, commercial and corporate affairs function and does not undertake reserved legal activities. We do not conduct litigation and have no rights of audience. Where regulated advice or proceedings are required, we instruct and control the appropriate specialists, hold the budget, and remain accountable for the commercial outcome.
Engagement & pricing →- What is an outsourced General Counsel?
- An outsourced General Counsel is a senior legal and commercial function retained by a business instead of employed by it. Dinmore Bell owns the contracts, disputes, governance and deals a General Counsel would own, coordinates regulated specialists where a matter needs them, and charges a monthly retainer rather than an hourly rate.
- How does the cost compare with hiring a General Counsel?
- A full-time General Counsel in the UK costs roughly £175,000 to £310,000 a year once salary, employer National Insurance, pension, benefits and recruitment are counted. A retained function typically costs 50 to 70 per cent less, and brings a coordinated bank of specialists rather than one person’s expertise.
- Are you a law firm?
- No. Dinmore Bell operates as a retained legal, commercial and corporate affairs function and does not undertake reserved legal activities. We do not conduct litigation and have no rights of audience. Where regulated advice or proceedings are needed, we instruct and control specialists and remain accountable for the outcome.
- What does an engagement start with?
- A Scope Analysis. We read the contracts, list the live risks, and set out in writing what we would take on, what stays with you, what needs a specialist and what it costs. You keep the written scope whether or not we go ahead.
- When does a business need a General Counsel?
- Usually somewhat before it thinks it does. The most common trigger is simply volume — enough contracts, suppliers and customers that no one person still holds the whole picture. The others are structural: a first institutional investor, an acquisition, a regulated product, or a dispute that will not resolve itself. If the founder is the person reading the contracts, the business has already passed the point.
- How is this different from a fractional General Counsel?
- A fractional General Counsel is generally one experienced lawyer selling a share of their week. That can work well, but it remains one person’s expertise and one person’s availability. Dinmore Bell is a function rather than an individual: a team that holds the contract estate, coordinates specialists where a matter needs them, and does not pause because somebody is on holiday or busy with another client.
- How is it different from instructing a law firm?
- A law firm answers the question you bring it, bills for the time that takes, and hands the work back to you. We take ownership instead: we hold the contracts, watch the renewals, raise the problem before you have noticed it, and charge the same whether the month is quiet or difficult. Where reserved legal work is required, we instruct a firm and manage it on your behalf.
- What size of business do you work with?
- Founder-led businesses that have outgrown ad-hoc legal help but cannot yet justify a full-time senior hire. Headcount matters less than shape: private ownership, decisions made by a small group, and a contract load that has grown faster than anyone planned for. If you are wondering whether you are too small, the Scope Analysis will tell you honestly — including when the answer is not yet.
- Do you work outside the UK?
- Yes. We are based in the UK and have a presence in Dubai, and we act for businesses trading internationally from both. Where a matter needs local regulated advice, we instruct and manage counsel in that jurisdiction on the same basis as we do at home: you brief us once, and we remain accountable for the commercial outcome.