Dealing with Underperformers
The Challenge: The company wasn’t dealing with underperforming staff due to a lack of experience, and also a lack of confidence, in the management team. This was having a ...
- TRANSPARENT – no hidden costs, you know how much you’re spending and what you’re getting for your money
- FLEXIBLE – support can be scaled up or down depending on volume and urgency
- AFFORDABLE – more cost-effective than a law firm
Flexible In-House Legal Support
For in-house counsel
Support without adding to headcount. Work as an extension to you/your team. Perfect for overflow work, a much-needed extra pair of hands and/or mentoring/coaching.
FIXED: Discounted day rates from £1600 / day (for 8+ days per month)
FLEXIBLE: Discounted day rates from £1875 / day (for 2+ days per month, with additional sliding scale discounts for more days)
WHAT YOU GET:
- Experienced in-house counsel
- Single point of contact to work behind the scenes or directly with the business
- Support with BAU work, projects, contracting peaks (e.g. quarter end etc.)
- Access to large internal and external specialist community, e.g. employment law, IP law, legal design, etc plus overseas lawyers, share option set up/ management, tax, litigators, etc
- Cover for absences
- Regular client service check-ins
- Regular practical newsletters
For scaling businesses
Your own in-house counsel to set up and run the legal function (people, processes, tech) and do the day-to-day work e.g. contract negotiation and management, sales team support, data/GDPR compliance, vendor procurement, brand management, etc.
FIXED: Discounted day rates from £1750 / day (min 2 days per month)
FLEXIBLE: Discounted day rates from £1875 / day (for 2+ days per month, with additional sliding scale discounts for more days)
WHAT YOU GET:
- Experienced in-house counsel
- Single point of contact
- Legal strategy and budget management
- Managing and prioritising BAU work
- Access to large internal and external specialist community, e.g. employment law, IP law, legal design, etc plus overseas lawyers, share option set up/ management, tax, litigators, etc.
- Legal/contracting process and tech implementation
- Regular client service check-ins
- Regular practical newsletters
For project work
Perfect for ad-hoc work such as contract template and playbook set up, HR projects, trade mark registration, ongoing data privacy/GDPR and other compliance projects, training, etc.
£350 per hour (no min purchase)
OR BULK BUY
£300 per hour (min purchase 10 hours a month in advance)
WHAT YOU GET:
- Experienced in-house counsel (depends on experience/availability)
- Work scoped as part of each assignment
- Fee estimates with change control
- Client service check-ins and/or just practical newsletters
Who We Work With
Tech
Our in-depth understanding of the tech space including SaaS, enterprise software, cloud services, software and app development, IoT, digital media and e-commerce means we have the knowledge and know-how to make a real difference to tech companies.We work with a number of different tech businesses including medtech, healthtech, fintech, regtech, biotech, edtech, proptech, legaltech to name a few…
Check out our Contracts & Deals service to see how we can help streamline your contracts and processes to make it easier for you to do business. Just a few of the tech-specific contracts we can help with include:
- Software development (agile, waterfall etc)
- IT services
- SaaS
- Software licenses
- IT consultancy
- VAR and reseller
- Systems integration
- IP licenses
- App terms and conditions
- Cloud services terms
- Hardware development
- Managed services
FMCG
We work closely with FMCG companies to understand their strategy and brand so we can provide tailored advice that protects and strengthens their competitive presence in their market.We regularly advise on:
- Fundraising
- Agreements and strategy for manufacturing, warehousing, logistics, supply, distribution, selling
- Intellectual property (IP) matters – including brand protection, re-branding strategies, protection of recipes, etc
- Hiring and incentivising staff
We’ve partnered with Young Foodies to support their start-up Food and Drinks brands with YF Legal. We provide practical and affordable legal support helping their brands raise investment, protect and sell their product and grow their teams.
Media
We provide legal support to advertising, media, marketing, social media and PR agencies. With an increased focus on digital and tech-based platforms we help to protect your rights and content. We help with:- Copyright issues
- Digital content distribution
- Revenue share issues
- Privacy and data protection
- IP rights
- Digital marketing campaigns via social media
- Trademark protection
Case Studies
Hiring and incentivising staff when expanding into new markets
The Challenge: A tech company based in the UK was expanding rapidly into EMEA. This presented some significant challenges, including how to hire and incentivise top talent across multiple ...
Dealing with people issues whilst navigating employment legislation
The Challenge: The management team lacked confidence / competence to handle people-related issues, and also had a patchy understanding of employment law. This was leading to unnecessary conflicts and ...
Dealing with a Trade Mark objection
The Challenge: Placemake.io, an AI company offering a range of solutions for development and investment firms, was growing rapidly and they wanted to ensure their brand was protected in-line ...
Expanding into new markets (whilst doing day-to-day legals too)
The Challenge: Depop were growing rapidly (in 2020 they quickly reached 25 million users globally) and recognised the importance of extending its reach to the US market as quickly as ...
From legal mayhem to calm, effective order
The challenge: Our client had no in-house legal function. Sometimes legal matters were being ignored until they reached boiling point. At other times, they were being handled by different ...
FAQs
What’s your approach?
Law firm lawyers and in-house lawyers have very different approaches. Law firm lawyers are more used to giving advice on particular matters. As in-house lawyers we use our business experience to work with you to achieve your business goals. We offer a more commercial, business-friendly approach than most law firms.What does that look like in practice? Well, it’s not just about fixing stuff that’s gone wrong or drafting a contract (although we do do that). It’s also about getting your legal strategy, processes and budget in shape to support your growth and avoid nasty, expensive surprises. We’ll take a big picture view and show you what you need to worry about, and what you don’t.
What work do you do?
We help you manage your legal strategy, processes, budget and work so that you can grow faster.A large part of our work is around improving your revenue-generating contracts (which law firms tend to ‘overlawyer’). For example: putting together bespoke templates that work for your business; negotiating with customers; closing out contracts quickly.
And we don’t just stop there – we then make sure there’s an end-to-end contracting process and that you know how to manage it internally. This will mean you can get revenue in faster without any of the hassle.
Other big areas of our work include helping our clients prepare for and secure investment and/or exit their business.
Find out more about our services:
What do you charge?
We work on a range of different fee structures – a day/hourly rate (where it’s not possible to scope a project) or fixed fee (where it is). Many of our clients work with us on a retainer basis for an agreed number of days each month. We also offer volume discounts.We’ll always keep you up-to-date on how much you’re spending and exactly what you’re getting for your money.
Although we provide a different service, as a guide we’re generally more affordable than outsourcing work to a typical law firm.
How are you different from a law firm?
Law firms provide specialist legal advice. Growing businesses like yours tend to need someone to handle the general everyday legal work, such as contracts and employment issues, as well as someone to keep an eye on the future. This often falls to the CFO or COO and detracts from their day job (and they don’t always have the right skills to do it successfully).This generalist work is what we do brilliantly. We offer a joined-up view of your legal. We help you manage your legal strategy, budgets, processes and work so that you’re able to scale faster and more effectively.
We don’t do endless negotiations or hundred page contracts. We don’t have palatial offices or charge the earth. We don’t put the clock on, and leave it on. And we’re not out of touch with the realities of business.
We make sure everything we do is always practical and relevant for your stage of business.
We write shorter, clearer contracts that make it easier for you and your clients to work together.
And we’ll always tell you what you don’t have to worry about.
Our business is growing up. We think we need better contracts and processes but we don’t know what. How can you help?
Don’t worry! We hear this from a lot of our clients.Our Legal Health Check is a great first step to help get you back in control of your legal so you can focus on running your business. We’ll help you:
- identify and prioritise legal risks and opportunities
- allocate your legal budget and resource
- plan your legal strategy
What kinds of businesses do you work with?
We work mostly with tech and media companies who are revenue positive or who are approaching their first funding round. They might need help with a particular business milestone, such as getting investment or adding new products or services. Or they might need ongoing help to manage their day-to-day legal work.A typical client of ours may be a funded, fast-growing SaaS company offering enterprise software. They might need help with getting their customer contracts drafted, negotiated and bringing in revenue faster, as well as setting up a contracting process and partner channels that work seamlessly.
Can you help with contracts?
Yes! When it comes to contracts, we’ve seen and done it all, from the all-important customer revenue contracts to employment and IP contracts. We can help with a specific contract to make it easier for you to do business – drafting it in a way that makes sense for your business, negotiating and closing it out. And we can improve your contracting processes to help you get revenue in faster.What don't you do?
We don’t provide certain specialist services such as tax and litigation (but we can manage and resolve disputes). However we can help you find the right advisers for your business and help you manage the work if needed.
