Fractional general counsel: a senior lawyer two days a week. Not a firm, and not a £150,000 hire.
A fractional general counsel is what most founder-led businesses actually need between the day the contracts start piling up and the day a full-time hire makes sense. Senior judgement, on the inside of the business, for the part of the week the business can use. The term arrived from finance, where a fractional CFO has been ordinary for years. It means the same thing here: one experienced person, several businesses, each getting a fraction of their time and all of their attention when it is their turn. The alternative was always a law firm charging by the hour for questions a founder could not afford to ask, or a hire the business could not yet justify. Dinmore Bell runs it as a team of fractional lawyers rather than a single individual, with one accountable lead who knows your business and the specialists behind them who do not need to. The fee is fixed and monthly. Nothing is billed by the hour.
A fractional general counsel is a senior commercial lawyer retained for part of their time, usually on a fixed monthly fee, to do the work an in-house General Counsel would do without the cost of employing one. Dinmore Bell delivers it as a team of fractional lawyers with one accountable lead, on retainers from £1,500 a month.
How we own it
What a fractional general counsel actually does
The same job as an in-house General Counsel, for the hours the business needs it. Reading the contracts before they are signed rather than after. Owning the supplier and customer paper so it is negotiated once and reused. Sitting in the room when an investor, a landlord or a large customer sends their own terms, and telling the founder plainly what those terms do. It is not a helpline and it is not a law firm on retainer. A fractional general counsel takes decisions and carries them, in the way an employee would, because they are inside the business often enough to know what the business is trying to do. The difference from an employee is the cost, and the range: a single hire knows what they know, and a fractional function brings in whoever the week needs. The work divides roughly into three. Contracts, which is most of it: templates, negotiation, renewals and the register that stops anything lapsing. Governance and structure: the board minutes, the shareholder documents, the entity map that a funder will ask for. And the things that go wrong: a customer who stops paying, a supplier who stops performing, a dispute that needs a position taken before it needs a lawyer.
Fractional, outsourced or in-house: which one?
The three words describe three ways of buying the same thing, and the honest answer is that the first two overlap almost completely. An in-house hire is one person, full-time, on the payroll. Right at the point where the legal work fills a week every week and the business can carry the fully loaded cost, which is well above the salary once employer contributions, insurance, training and management time are counted. Wrong before that, because a good lawyer with half a job leaves. A fractional general counsel is one senior person for part of their time. It is what most firms offering the service actually deliver: one individual, a day or two a week, their own network of specialists behind them. The strength is continuity. The weakness is that one person has one set of skills and one diary. An outsourced general counsel function is the same idea delivered by a team on a retainer. One person leads and is accountable; others do the work that suits them. The strength is range and cover. The weakness, with the wrong provider, is that the founder never knows who they are dealing with. Dinmore Bell is built to take the strength of each: a team of fractional lawyers, one accountable lead per client, fixed fee. Which word you use for that is less important than whether the person on the other end of the phone knows your business.
What a fractional general counsel costs
Retainers start at £1,500 a month and are agreed against a written scope, so the number reflects the work rather than the hours. Every engagement begins with a Scope Analysis: a half-hour call, after which you get a written statement of what we would take on and what it would cost, and you keep it whether or not you go ahead. The comparison worth making is not against a law firm hourly rate, which measures a different thing, but against the hire you would otherwise make. An in-house lawyer costs materially more than the salary on the offer letter once employer National Insurance, pension, insurance, training and the management time to run them are counted, and that cost arrives whether or not there is a full week of work. A fractional arrangement scales in both directions. It rises for a transaction, a raise or a dispute, and it falls back afterwards, and the retainer is revisited rather than the arrangement ending. The businesses that get the most from it are the ones that treat the lead as a member of the team who happens to work elsewhere on other days.
Who it suits, and who it does not
It suits a founder-led business that has crossed the threshold where the legal and commercial paper is costing real time: enterprise customers sending their own terms, a first senior hire, a term sheet, a second site, a supplier estate nobody has read. Typically that is somewhere between ten and a hundred staff, though the number is a poor guide and the symptoms are a good one. It suits a business with more than one entity, or with a UK and UAE presence, where the question of which company signs what has stopped being administrative. And it suits a business that has had a law firm on retainer and found it answered the questions asked without ever noticing the ones that were not. It does not suit a business that needs a regulated specialist most weeks, such as a heavily litigated one, where the fractional role would spend its time instructing others. It does not suit a business too early to have contracts worth reading. And it does not suit a founder who wants a lawyer they can hand things to and forget: a fractional general counsel works beside you, not instead of you.
Where specialists come in
Where a matter needs a regulated specialist, such as conducting litigation or a filing position, Dinmore Bell instructs one, briefs them, holds the budget and stays accountable for the outcome. Dinmore Bell does not undertake reserved legal activities.
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What a fully loaded General Counsel actually costs
The comparison is not our fee against an hourly rate. It is our fee against the hire you would otherwise make.
- What is a fractional lawyer?
- A senior lawyer who works for several businesses at once, each for a fraction of their time, rather than one employer full-time. The businesses get experience they could not afford to employ, and the lawyer gets a portfolio rather than a single desk. "Fractional general counsel" is the same idea applied to the most senior in-house role.
- How much does a fractional general counsel cost in the UK?
- It depends on how much of the person you need. Dinmore Bell retainers start at £1,500 a month and are scoped on a call before anything is agreed. The comparison that matters is not against an hourly rate but against the fully loaded cost of the hire you would otherwise make, which is well above the salary on the offer letter.
- What is the difference between fractional and outsourced general counsel?
- Fractional usually means one senior individual for part of their time. Outsourced usually means a function, delivered by a team, on a retainer. The words overlap in practice and are used interchangeably by most firms. Dinmore Bell is a team of fractional lawyers run as an outsourced function: one accountable lead, with specialists brought in behind them as the work needs.
- Is a fractional general counsel right for a startup?
- Usually from the point at which contracts, customers or investors start asking for things a founder cannot answer alone: enterprise paper, a data-protection questionnaire, a term sheet. Before that it is often too early; after the first fifty staff it may be time to hire. The window in between is where fractional works best.
- How many days a week does a fractional general counsel work?
- As many as the scope needs, and it changes. A typical engagement runs at the equivalent of half a day to two days a week, rising around a transaction or a dispute and falling back afterwards. The retainer is agreed against the work, not a fixed number of days.
- Can a fractional general counsel handle a dispute or a court claim?
- The commercial side, yes: the correspondence, the negotiation, the position. Where a matter needs a regulated specialist, such as conducting litigation, Dinmore Bell instructs one, briefs them, holds the budget and stays accountable for the outcome. You deal with one relationship rather than several.