Fractional General Counsel in Dubai: a senior lawyer for part of the week. Not a law firm, and not a full-time hire.
Most founder-led businesses in the UAE reach the point where the paper outruns the founder well before they can justify a full-time General Counsel. Enterprise customers send their own terms, a free zone licence needs a new activity, a distributor wants exclusivity across the GCC. Someone senior has to read it, decide what matters and carry the position. A fractional General Counsel is that person for the part of the week the business can use. Dinmore Bell runs it as an outsourced function from Dubai: one accountable lead who knows the business, specialists behind them, and a fixed monthly fee. Nothing is billed by the hour.
A fractional General Counsel in Dubai is a senior lawyer retained for part of their time, on a fixed monthly fee, to do the work an in-house General Counsel would do without the cost of employing one. Dinmore Bell provides it as an outsourced function from Dubai, instructing licensed local counsel wherever UAE law requires an advocate.
How we own it
What a fractional General Counsel does in the UAE
The same job an in-house General Counsel would do, for the hours the business needs. Reading customer, supplier and distribution contracts before they are signed. Holding the templates so they are negotiated once and reused. Keeping the activities on the trade licence matched to what the business actually sells, which in the UAE is a live question rather than a formality. Taking the board papers, shareholder documents and entity map in hand before a funder or acquirer asks for them. When something goes wrong, the fractional lead takes the commercial position first: the customer who stops paying, the supplier who stops performing, the employee leaving with a client list. Most of those are settled by whoever is better prepared. Where a matter needs court proceedings or regulated advice under UAE law, a licensed local advocate is instructed, briefed by us, on a scope and fee agreed first.
Why not a Dubai law firm, or an in-house hire?
A law firm answers the question it is asked, at an hourly rate, and hands it back. That is the right tool for a transaction or a court case and the wrong one for the steady load of terms, renewals and licence questions a growing UAE company carries. Nobody inside the business controls the spend. An in-house hire is one person, full-time, on a UAE employment contract with a visa, mandatory health insurance and an end-of-service gratuity that accrues from the first year. It is right once the legal work fills every week. Before that, a good lawyer with half a job leaves, and the business is left with the gratuity and the gap. Our companion piece sets out what an in-house lawyer costs in Dubai line by line.
What it costs
Retainers start at AED 7,050 a month and are agreed against a written scope, so the figure reflects the work rather than the hours. Every engagement begins with a Scope Analysis: we read the contracts and the licence, list the live risks, and set out what we would take on, what stays with you, what needs local counsel and what it costs. You keep the written scope whether or not you go ahead. The arrangement moves in both directions. It rises for a restructuring, a new free zone entity or a dispute, and falls back afterwards. The retainer is revisited rather than the relationship ending.
Who it suits in the Gulf, and who it does not
It suits a founder-led business in Dubai or elsewhere in the UAE that has outgrown signing contracts as they arrive: typically ten to a hundred staff, though the symptoms are a better guide than the headcount. It suits a group with a UK company and a UAE company, or one expanding from the UAE into Abu Dhabi or Saudi Arabia, where the question of which entity signs what has stopped being administrative. It does not suit a business that is in the UAE courts most months, where the role would spend its time instructing advocates. It does not suit a business too early to have contracts worth reading. And it does not suit a founder who wants to hand things over and forget them: a fractional General Counsel works beside you. For the wider picture of how the function runs in the Emirates, see outsourced General Counsel in Dubai.
Where specialists come in
Dinmore Bell's UAE company is licensed for business consultancy, not as a law firm, and does not appear before the UAE courts. Where a matter needs a licensed UAE advocate, such as court proceedings or regulated advice, Dinmore Bell instructs one, briefs them, holds the budget and stays accountable for the outcome.
- What is a fractional lawyer in Dubai?
- The phrase usually describes a senior lawyer who works for several businesses at once, each for part of their time, instead of being employed full-time by one. In the UAE the role sits alongside, not in place of, licensed advocates: the fractional General Counsel owns the contracts, structure and commercial positions, and instructs a licensed local advocate when a matter needs court representation or regulated advice. That is how Dinmore Bell works.
- How much does a fractional General Counsel cost in the UAE?
- Dinmore Bell retainers in the UAE start at AED 7,050 a month, fixed, and are agreed against a written scope rather than an estimate of hours. The useful comparison is with the fully loaded cost of an in-house hire in Dubai, which includes the visa, mandatory health insurance and the end-of-service gratuity that builds up from the first year, not only the salary.
- Is Dinmore Bell a law firm in Dubai?
- No. Our UAE company, Maurice James LLC-FZ, trading as Dinmore Bell International, is licensed for business consultancy. We act as a retained, outsourced General Counsel function: contracts, structure, governance and commercial disputes. We do not appear before the UAE courts or hold ourselves out as UAE advocates; where UAE law requires a licensed advocate we instruct one, agree the scope and fee first, and stay accountable for the outcome.
- What is the difference between a fractional and an outsourced General Counsel?
- Fractional usually means one senior person for part of their time. Outsourced usually means a function delivered by a team on a retainer. Most providers use the words interchangeably. Dinmore Bell runs the role as an outsourced function with one accountable lead per client, so the business gets the continuity of one person and the cover of a team.
- Does a free zone company need a General Counsel?
- Not as a job title, but the work exists from the first customer contract. A free zone company still signs customer and supplier terms, employs staff under UAE labour rules, and has to keep its licensed activities matched to what it actually does. A fractional arrangement covers that load at the stage when a full-time hire would have half a job.
- How many days a week does a fractional General Counsel work?
- As many as the scope needs. A typical engagement runs at the equivalent of half a day to two days a week, rising for a licence change, a transaction or a dispute and falling back afterwards. The retainer is set against the work, not a fixed count of days, and it is revisited rather than ended when the work changes.
- Can you cover Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia as well as Dubai?
- Yes. The same function covers a business with entities in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Saudi Arabia, and the UK side of the same group, briefed once. Local counsel in each jurisdiction is instructed where the law requires a licensed practitioner.