Hire a Fractional General Counsel
Former in-house legal leaders who have closed financings, built contract playbooks, and stood up compliance programs, pre-screened and matched to your company in about 3 days.
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When to hire a Fractional General Counsel
Hire a fractional General Counsel when legal work is slowing revenue or exposing you to risk, but you don't yet have the volume for a full-time legal head.
Outside counsel bills keep climbing
You send routine NDAs, MSAs, and vendor contracts to a law firm and pay hourly for work an in-house lead would handle in minutes.
Deals stall in redlines
Enterprise customers send back procurement terms and nobody on your team can negotiate liability caps, indemnities, or data processing addendums with confidence.
A financing or acquisition is coming
Diligence is about to expose messy IP assignments, missing board consents, and an outdated cap table that someone needs to clean up.
Privacy and compliance gaps
You're selling into regulated buyers or new markets and need GDPR, CCPA, SOC 2 contract language, or sector rules handled before an audit.
Employment issues are piling up
Terminations, contractor classification, equity grants, and policy questions are landing on the CEO or head of people with no legal owner.
Your GC just left
Board matters, open disputes, and pending contracts need an experienced legal leader immediately while you decide on a permanent hire.
The benefits of hiring a Fractional General Counsel
A fractional General Counsel gives you an in-house legal leader who knows your business, at a fraction of the commitment of a full-time hire or the hourly sprawl of outside counsel.
Put senior legal judgment on every contract
Former in-house GCs review your customer, vendor, and employment agreements without a full-time salary, equity grant, and benefits package.
Close your financing with counsel already in place
Pre-screened candidates are ready in days, so diligence requests, cap table cleanup, and term sheet review don't wait on a months-long legal executive search.
Hand risk to a GC who has run legal in-house
Our operators have managed litigation, privacy programs, IP portfolios, and board governance at companies at your stage and in your industry.
How to hire a Fractional General Counsel
No more juggling job boards and sorting through pools of unqualified applicants. Hiring a Fractional General Counsel is easy with Go Fractional.
Intro Call
Answer a few quick questions, then book a free 30-minute intro call with our team to review your goals, needs, and team dynamics.
Meet Experts
Our AI finds Fractional General Counsel candidates whose past clients and projects match your brief, which you won’t find on LinkedIn. A dedicated executive recruiter verifies each one’s experience, fit, and genuine interest, and you meet the ones who fit in about 3 days.
Start Work
Book time with candidates right from your shortlist, choose your operator, and sign a simple month-to-month agreement. We move as fast as you do.
Engagements that fit how you work
Every Go Fractional engagement is structured for senior leadership without full-time overhead. Start fractional, scale up, or convert to full-time when you’re ready.
Fractional General Counsel
- Senior leadership on a part-time schedule
- Monthly retainer, no recruiting fees
- Scale hours up or down as needs change
Contract-to-Hire
Trial a Fractional General Counsel on a fractional engagement before converting them to a full-time hire.
- Keep the expert's learnings or convert to full-time
- Try the fit before you commit, no hiring risk
- Faster speed to market, conserving time and resources
Interim General Counsel
Full-time coverage for a defined stretch: a leadership gap, a transition, or a critical project.
Fractional General Counsel rates average $238/hr across our live benchmarks. Pricing scales with hours and scope.
General Counsel Hourly RatesFractional vs full-time vs agency
Three ways to get General Counsel leadership, and where each one wins.
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| Factor | Fractional General Counsel | Full-time General Counsel | Outside law firm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to hire | ~3 days | 3-6 months | 1-2 weeks to engage |
| Engagement | Monthly retainer | Salary + equity + benefits | Hourly billing by matter |
| Business context | Embedded in your team and roadmap | Deep, full-time | Limited to each matter |
| Day-to-day contracts | Owns the playbook and review queue | Owns it, often with a team | Expensive for routine work |
| Best for | Strategic legal leadership, flexible scope | Large, steady legal volume | Litigation and specialist matters |
We’ve helped hundreds of organizations Go Fractional
Twelve years: the average experience across a network of handpicked executives ready to make an impact on day one.
“It was literally three days after he started with us fractionally, our CEO was calling me and asking if we could get a full-time offer out.”
“It's a can't-lose scenario. You either get the learnings from the subject matter expert, or you get the full-time capability. It provided a ton of flexibility, much faster speed to market, and conservation of time and resources.”
“Having someone senior from day one as a founder means you're actually hiring yourself out of a job, not transferring that amount of work to essentially management of someone junior, which can only be as often just as much work or only slightly less work.”
Frequently asked questions
Here are a few questions that folks just like you have had during their search.
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