Day-to-Day Legal
Contracts & Deals
Watch our bite-size video on how to improve your contracts and processes.Ineffective contracts can slow down your sales cycle and reduce revenue growth, whilst bad or unprofitable deals cost money and management time.- Streamline contracts and processes, making it easier for you to do business
- Create templates that reflect your operational realities and work for your business
- Negotiate your contracts to get them signed as quickly as possible
- Introduce playbooks, train and empower your sales teams to negotiate efficiently and effectively, bringing in revenue faster (see our training section for more detail)
- Apply contracts and processes consistently across new markets to help you to scale efficiently
- Health check supplier contracts to get deals done more quickly
And, we’ll find tools to help you get out of or renegotiate bad, ineffective or unprofitable deals.
- Review your contracts and processes to assess your options, leverage what you have and help get you the best possible result
- Find practical solutions to avoid lengthy court battles where possible
- Negotiate with your customers/suppliers so you don’t have to
- Enforce the terms of your contracts
- Restructure the deal and contract in a way that works for both sides so you can get your business back on track
People & Incentives
Your people are your key assets. Make sure you can attract and retain the right people to help your business grow.- Review and improve your employment contracts, policies and hiring process so that expectations are clear and your business is adequately protected
- Help to put the right employee incentives in place to attract and keep your people (whilst protecting yourself)
- Provide consistency in approach as you grow into new markets
- Ensure you’re complying with regularly changing industry practice and law
- Make sure you understand the differences between freelancers/contractors and employees to minimise IR35 and other risks
- Ensure you have limits of authority/a sign off process so you’re clear on who’s agreeing what for the company
- Help to deal with underperforming staff
- Help manage restructuring programmes
Fractional Employment Counsel & Head Of People
Your people are your biggest asset. But attracting and retaining talent whilst managing your team can be a challenge – so getting it right from the outset with a good strategy is paramount to growth.
We’ll help navigate all your people needs including giving strategic legal and operational HR support to enable growth in line with your business objectives and values.
Click here to find out about our Employment Issues 101 Workshop aimed at managers, HR leaders and leadership teams.
Products & Services
Roll out your new products/services as efficiently as possible so you’re ready to sign up new customers quickly and realise revenue fast .- Make your contracts work for the products/services you’re selling so that it’s easy to do business
- Leverage templates to avoid re-inventing the wheel
- Get the right licensing model and processes for new tech products/services/SaaS
- Protect and properly exploit the IP rights in the new products/services
- Manage regulatory issues
- Work with sales and marketing teams to get external communications right
Brand Protection & Trade Marks
Safeguard your brand, product/services and reputation as you grow.- Register your trade mark and make sure your trade mark portfolio is right for your business and you’re not wasting money
- Assess what you have and prioritise what you need to protect (and what you don’t) and how you protect it
- Protect your intellectual property to keep your brand strong in all your markets and territories
- Ensure a smooth roll out of any rebrand and that communications are handled effectively
Trade Mark Services
Click here for our Quick Fees Calculator and a simple online application form which includes a no-obligation preliminary trade mark search.
International Expansion
We’ll help you avoid the pitfalls of doing business locally and get you trading in your new markets as soon as possible.- Guide you through the process of setting up (new branch, office, subsidiary, etc.) so that you can make the right decisions for your business
- Get the right corporate structure in place with the right documentation
- Ensure you’re complying with and understand local legal requirements
- Localise contracts to make it it easier to do business locally whilst keeping your templates and processes consistent
- Help you to protect your brand and other assets in each new market
- Onboard staff in the right way to minimise risk
- Work with our global network of local providers to make it hassle free
* See our case study with Depop on Expanding into new markets (and doing the day- to-day legals too)
US Expansion
Expanding into the US is exciting, but it can also be complicated. Businesses often come to us perplexed by federal and state tax, insurance, employment rules, US work visas and other market-entry issues. We help UK and EMEA businesses work out what legal and commercial support they need, what can wait, and how to put the right foundations in place without slowing growth.You have a single point of contact who works as an extension of your team, coordinating the right US legal and tax specialists where needed and keeping the work practical, commercial and joined up.
We:
- Help you navigate the legal and commercial issues involved in entering the US market
- Work with US specialists so advice is focused, practical and easy to act on
- Support decisions on US set up: entities, group structure, state registrations and ongoing governance
- Coordinate specialist input on federal and state tax, insurance requirements, trade marks and US immigration issues, including work visas, where relevant
- Review and localise contracts for your US customers, suppliers, partners and contractors
- Help you manage key US compliance areas including employment, privacy, IP, advertising and consumer terms and other regulated areas
- Create a clear launch plan so your team knows what needs to happen before, during and after entry into the US
- Keep your UK and EMEA legal work moving while you focus on US growth
Our role is to make US expansion manageable: to provide clear priorities, practical legal support and the right specialist input at the right time.
GDPR & Data Protection
We’ll help put in place a practical data protection strategy that minimises reputational, legal and financial risk.- Understand what personal data you hold and what you do with it
- Prioritise the steps you need to take for compliance and implement them
- Get the right documents, policies and processes in place for compliance
- Ensure policies and contracts include the right data protection clauses
- Ensure your sales and marketing strategy and communications are compliant
- Get the right documents and processes in place for staff data
- Train staff on their responsibilities for handling data (see our training)
- Get the right processes and support for detecting and reporting data breaches, handling complaints and subject access requests
- Comply with relevant data protection laws in the jurisdictions in which you operate using our global network of data specialists
- Provide DPO services and access to our network of EU Reps
- Click here for more information on why you need a RoPA and the costs.
- Click here to find out about our Data Protection Health Check.
Company Set Up & Governance
We’ll ensure your corporate set up, structure, documents and filings are right and protect the business as you grow. Neglecting this, doing it yourself, or outsourcing to someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing is common, and causes problems later on. It’s not uncommon for it to delay or even jeopardize a funding round or exit. Which can be catastrophic if you’re running out of runway. So it’s really important to get key things in place when you start and as you scale.
We will:
- Guide you through the choices and process of setting up (limited company, LLP, etc)
- Get legal documentation in place to protect you, your shareholders and your directors, including founder / shareholder agreements, new Articles of Association, director services agreements, etc.
- Advise on compliance with corporate law and constitutional documents and governance to ensure the relationship between the shareholders and management is properly regulated
- Help you understand your responsibilities as a director – see our ‘Director’s Duties’ workshop
- Click here to find out about our Corporate Document Health Check.
Fundraising
We’ll guide you through your investment round quickly and efficiently so you can get on with running your business.- Help you understand different types of investments and which is best for you [see our Pitch Prep service below]
- Show you up front what the investment process will be like, how it differs according to types of investors and what to expect and when
- Make sure you’re ready for investor due diligence so you can execute the deal quickly
- Help you get the right structure and documents in place for the investment using our tried and tested templates
- Help you negotiate to get the best possible deal
- Advise on stakeholder/external communications
- Help you navigate your post-investment world – add people, products, tech
Pitch Prep: we’ll review your pitch deck and give practical guidance and feedback so you can deliver a winning pitch. We know what investors are looking for because we’ve been on both sides of the table.
- Meet for a deep dive into your business and where you are on your investment journey
- Provide guidance and advice on your funding strategy and objectives
- Review your pitch deck and give you feedback so you end up with a professionally presented pitch that covers the necessary and attracts investors
- Provide you with a package of legal basics that you’ll need when you’re in contact with investors (NDA, disclaimers, FSMA waivers, etc)
Check out our blog on How to win over investors
Buying & Selling Companies (M&A), Joint Ventures, etc
We work closely with founders, boards, and investors, including VCs and private equity, to guide you through a merger, acquisition, exit, joint venture, etc quickly and efficiently, so you can stay focused on running your business. We:- Help you assess whether the deal is the right strategic move for your business
- Show you upfront what the transaction process will look like, how it differs by deal type, what to expect at each stage, and the associated fees
- Prepare you for due diligence so the transaction can progress smoothly and without surprises
- Help you put the right deal structure and documentation in place using proven approaches and templates
- Support you through negotiations to secure the right commercial and strategic outcome
- Advise on stakeholder, investor, and external communications throughout the process
- Help you navigate the post-transaction phase – integration planning, governance, and operational alignment
Legal Operations
Legal Strategy & Budget
Legal operations is about running your legal function like a business, focusing on priorities, efficiencies and budget management to add value.Many growing businesses struggle to manage legal effectively, either spending too much on specialist lawyers when they need a more commercial approach or trying to manage it themselves. We proactively manage legal and anticipate legal issues before they become a problem to avoid nasty, expensive surprises.
- Create and manage your legal strategy and improve processes
- Manage your legal budget to ensure spend is aligned with risk
- Use the right resources for the right job, including managing law firm specialists and other advisers, implementing tech for contract management, compliance, etc.
- Understand what you need to worry about, and what you don’t
- Protect and maximize assets
- Close deals quickly to drive revenue
- Navigate business milestones, such as fundraising and launching new products and services
Health Check & Risk Assessment
Watch our Health Check videoOur Health Check allows a business to take stock, review its practices and processes and take steps to put its house in order. It’s designed to highlight potential issues before they become problematic. We’ll work with you to understand the risk profile of your business, your objectives and priorities, highlighting where money is best spent (and where it’s not).- Identify the legal risks affecting your organisation
- Review your risk position to avoid crises
- Assess the potential impact of those risks on your organisation
- Produce a risk summary and action plan
- Prioritise what needs to be in place so you don’t waste time and money
- Implement practical solutions within an agreed budget and timescale
- Free up your management time so you focus on your business and achieving your goals
We also offer a Mini Legal Health Check, which is particularly useful for reviewing legal debt – assessing what legal work needs prioritising (templates, compliance, policies, training, etc). This helps ensure that legal risks don’t build up and become costly problems later. These cost from £2,000 + VAT. See our blog on Legal Debt here.
AI for Legal
AI can support legal work, cut costs and remove bottlenecks, provided it’s set up and used properly. We help businesses implement AI tools to streamline legal workflows and keep you compliant with the right level of human oversight.What we do:
- Map AI to legal workflows Identify where AI can deliver value across the business, for contracts, compliance and other legal support and FAQS across Sales, Marketing, Procurement, Tech, HR, Finance, etc…
- Contracting Automate contract review and negotiation, build playbooks (for NDAs, Customer MSAs, Supplier contracts, etc), establish risk thresholds (what’s acceptable/ not) and negotiating positions, validate model suggestions, build clause libraries, set up feedback loops, etc., plus set up responses for FAQs (e.g. renewal dates, fees increases, etc.).
- Define AI vs. human review Set clear rules about what can/ should be automated and what needs human input/ review and implement escalation pathways.
- AI governance Help implement AI by supporting vendor selection (SLAs, IP ownership, confidentiality, liability, security), put policies and controls in place so AI tools are used safely, consistently and at scale. Ensuring compliance with data protection, AI, and other regulatory requirements.
- Help drive internal adoption Via training, cheat sheets, demos, Q&As and early-user support to get teams using AI with confidence. Work with tech/ infosec for integration with tech stack (SharePoint/Google docs, document management systems, CRM, Salesforce, etc), ticketing tools (Jira, etc) – access permissions, document routing, contract storage, version control rules, audit trails.
Training
The aim of our training is to enable businesses to do more without the need for legal input.We provide practical training to help improve processes, build team knowledge and drive efficiencies. We run training sessions that focus on educating teams on legal topics and developing an understanding of how to work with legal. We also offer bespoke workshops tailored to your business objectives.
CONTRACTS
- Empowering sales teams to negotiate and close deals quickly and effectively
- Demystifying legal terminology and understanding your contracts
- Revenue recognition and why it’s important
- Negotiation skills
HR
- HR contracts and policies
- Essential employment law for managers – the employment life cycle from start to finish
- Handling employee investigations to minimise claims
- Anti-bullying and harassment
- Equality and diversity
- Absence management
- Employment Issues 101 Workshop (click here for more information)
DISPUTES
Dispute resolution (click here for more information)
BUSINESS SET UP
- Directors’ Duties
- Equity Cap Table Management
COMPLIANCE
- Risk management and escalation training
- Limits of Authority (covering delegation and sign off)
- Anti-bribery/corruption
- Modern slavery training
- Practical training to demystify GDPR and understand compliance and processes
TECH/IP
- How to protect, manage and exploit your intellectual property assets
- Best practise for Open Source compliance
- Third party software compliance
LEGAL OPS/DESIGN
- How to manage and prioritise legal work and budget
- Legal teams: Working more efficiently for your business
DISPUTE RESOLUTION TRAINING
All businesses have disputes – how it’s managed in the early stages can make the crucial difference between prompt resolution and an ongoing costly headache.
Our training serves as an introduction to the fundamentals of dispute resolution.
By providing this training, you’re empowering your managers to mitigate risks, foster a positive work environment, and maintain productivity.
Legal Design
Legal design combines design thinking with legal services to make law and legal documents easier to understand and more accessible and user friendly.- Develop lean and scalable documentation and processes to get deals done quicker and improve revenue recognition
- Redesign contracts and policies to make them simpler and user friendly whilst ensuring that legal risks are managed
- Develop legal triaging and self-serve products so business teams can avoid over reliance on senior management/legal
- Identify tech within your existing stack that can be used to streamline compliance and contracting processes
- Identify ways to make the most of the data embedded in legal documentation to better inform strategic decision-making and budgeting
In-House Lawyer Search & Recruitment
LegalEdge specialises in finding permanent in-house lawyers and first General Counsel for high-growth and established businesses. Our strategic and highly selective search process guarantees that we will only introduce candidates who align with your business needs, values, and leadership expectations.Our Commitment to You:
- True Partnership: we integrate with your team and align with your brand, culture, and long-term vision.
- Rigorous Candidate Filtering: we’ll save you time and effort by providing a curated shortlist of the most suitably qualified candidates who meet your specific requirements.
- Tailored Search Strategy: we take the time to understand your unique needs, ensuring we find legal leaders with both the expertise and cultural fit required for success.
- Time-Saving Efficiency: we manage the entire search process, allowing you to focus on strategic priorities and daily business needs.
Partner with LegalEdge for a seamless and effective hiring experience. We’ll ensure you find the right legal leader to make an immediate and positive impact on your business.
Mentoring and Coaching
Our mentoring and coaching services can help those navigating their in-house counsel role. Whether you’re new to an in house position or seeking to enhance your skills, our experienced team offers personalised guidance and strategic insights to help you succeed in our fast-moving legal landscape.MENTORING
Our mentoring support is tailored to support those early on in their in-house legal career. We bring a wealth of experience as senior in-house lawyers, well-acquainted with the demands of the in-house role, particularly being ‘first in’, along with insight and support on how to build a robust and cohesive legal function.
Each mentoring relationship is unique, but typically guidance is focused around your specific challenges, objectives and work, to facilitate your professional growth and success. And it generally covers the following.
- Strategic support and advice: we help equip you with the right tools, insights and best practices for navigating the complexities of your role effectively.
- Workload management: we help prioritise tasks and optimise workflow to improve productivity and minimise stress, fostering a balanced and sustainable approach to your work and responsibilities.
- Sounding board: acting as a confidential sounding board, providing a safe space for you to explore ideas, seek feedback and gain perspective on challenging issues, empowering you to make informed decisions with confidence.
We may also be able to provide supervision for those wanting to qualify as solicitors.
By leveraging our mentoring support, you receive invaluable guidance and resources so you can develop professionally and establish a strong foundation for your legal function’s success.
COACHING
Finding ways to understand ourselves better, to help direct and control our careers and core elements of our lives, can sometimes be difficult. That’s where a coach can really help. Rachael North is the People & Culture Lead at LegalEdge and a highly sought after Executive Coach. With close to 10 years’ coaching experience and 20 years’ leadership experience, nurturing in-house legal careers, championing personal and professional development and enhancing executive experiences, has been a constant activity for Rachael throughout.
She works with the LegalEdge team, as well as CLO’s, GC’s, Directors, CEO’s, CFO’s, founders and business leaders. Supporting clients to tap into blocks, learning how to be accountable and staying open to their potential, Rachael builds deep and authentic relationships and uses bespoke coaching techniques, including scientifically proven assessment tools, to produce excellent results. Coaching can be one of the most powerful ways to speed up personal and professional transformation. And, in a constantly evolving legal world we can all benefit from having this additional support, especially when adapting to change. You should know when you engage Rachael, you can be assured of her singular attention and positive energy to champion you or your business.
Speak to Rachael about:
- Cultivating clear communication skills
- Boosting self-belief and confidence levels
- Adapting to change and refining interpersonal skills in an evolving legal landscape
- Fostering resilience, recognising inherent strengths and creating a better state of being
- Charting career trajectories and developmental roadmaps
- Developing leadership abilities to influence, shape direction and lead by example
- Managing tough conversations
- Nurturing business expansion strategies
- Prioritising personal well-being and work-life balance
“Working with Rachael has been a real pleasure. She enabled me to take a look at my career development and challenges with fresh eyes, using an insightful and structured approach. Rachael leverages her deep expertise in the legal sector to provide knowledgeable input and she is not afraid to challenge and test her clients. I would certainly encourage other professionals to work with Rachael if they are lucky enough to have the opportunity.”
Keir Ashton, ex Global Chief Legal Officer – Louis Dreyfus Company, Global Commodities
Fractional Consultants
Fractional Legal Counsel
At LegalEdge, our fractional in-house lawyers provide practical, effective legal solutions for scaling companies. We’ll establish a cost-effective, efficient legal function to manage your day-to-day legal matters while adding value to your business.Fractional Employment Counsel
Your people are your biggest asset. But attracting and retaining talent whilst managing your team can be a challenge – so getting it right from the outset with a good strategy is paramount to growth.We’ll help navigate all your people needs including giving strategic legal and operational HR support to enable growth in line with your business objectives and values.
Fractional HR Consultant
We provide strategic guidance and hands-on HR support to help you build a people approach that aligns with your business goals and evolves as you grow.
Our experienced, CIPD qualified Fractional Heads of People work alongside you as part of your team, helping you think ahead, make better people decisions, and put the right foundations in place. At the same time, we make sure your day-to-day HR runs smoothly and stays compliant.
Whether you already have an HR lead or team, or no HR resource at all, we adapt to suit your needs – supporting specific projects, adding capacity during busy periods, or building and leading your people function.
We also work closely with our employment lawyers (see our HR Legal Counsel service) where needed, giving you a joined-up approach across HR and employment law.
What this means in practice
We keep things simple, practical and aligned to your business, helping you:
- Build a clear, effective people strategy
- Put the right structures and processes in place as you grow
- Support and develop your managers
- Create an engaged and high-performing culture
- Handle more complex people challenges with confidence
Our services include:
Developing your HR strategy
- Developing your people strategy aligned to business goals
- Organisational design and workforce planning
- HR audits to identify gaps, risks and opportunities
Policies and processes
- Creating and updating workplace policies, handbooks and documentation
- Designing compensation and benefits that attract and retain talent
- Building practical, scalable HR processes
Performance and people management
- Designing performance frameworks and appraisal processes
- Supporting managers with day-to-day people management
- Guidance on performance issues, disciplinaries and grievances
Employee lifecycle support
- Recruitment support and hiring processes
- Onboarding and integration
- Managing exits, including redundancies and sensitive situations
Wellbeing and absence
- Absence management and return-to-work support
- Long-term sickness guidance and occupational health coordination
Growth and change
- Restructuring, TUPE and organisational change
- Talent management and succession planning
- Employee engagement surveys and action planning
Fractional US Legal Counsel
Doing business in the US brings a unique legal and commercial landscape. Navigating federal and state laws, understanding local business practices, managing regulatory requirements and mitigating litigation risk all require practical, market-specific expertise.Our US-based legal team acts as an extension of your business, providing commercially focused, day-to-day legal support across contracts, compliance, employment and corporate matters. We work closely with your UK and EMEA teams to deliver seamless cross-border support, bringing in specialist US counsel (e.g. tax or litigation) only when additional expertise is needed.
With lawyers based in both the US and UK, we help keep international projects moving across time zones while ensuring legal support remains coordinated, practical and aligned with your commercial objectives.
We:
- Act as your trusted US legal partner, providing clear ownership across UK, EMEA and US stakeholders
- Deliver practical, business-focused legal advice without unnecessary complexity
- Coordinate specialist US counsel where required, ensuring advice remains targeted and cost-effective
- Support day-to-day commercial contracting, including customer agreements, supplier terms, technology contracts and strategic partnerships
- Localise and maintain contracts, policies, templates and internal processes for US operations
- Identify and prioritise legal and regulatory risks across employment, privacy, data protection, AI governance, advertising, intellectual property and corporate governance
- Support senior leadership and boards of directors on governance matters, including board and committee meetings, resolutions and corporate governance processes
- Support business growth initiatives, including US market expansion, new state launches, hiring, vendor onboarding, fundraising, acquisitions and corporate restructures
- Help leadership teams understand which issues require specialist legal advice and which can be managed efficiently as part of day-to-day operations
- Take a proactive approach to legal risk, helping identify potential issues early before they become costly business problems
Whether you’re expanding into the US, supporting an existing US business or managing cross-border operations, our goal is to make US legal support feel integrated, commercially practical and easy to navigate.
Fractional EMEA GC for US Companies
As your Fractional EMEA General Counsel we work as an extension to your US legal or business team, managing your EMEA legal work and providing strategic advice to navigate the complexities of these markets.- Work with your US and EMEA teams to set up an effective EMEA legal function that proactively supports the business
- Localise, negotiate and draft contracts with your customers, local partners and suppliers
- Maintain consistency of templates and processes across EMEA and in line with US
- Identify and mitigate legal risks associated with market entry and expansion
- Ensure regulatory compliance across EMEA
- Make it easier for you to do business across borders by understanding the different laws and cultures
- Manage your people/HR legal matters across EMEA to ensure compliant onboarding of new staff and staying up to date with HR legal requirements
- Implement robust GDPR/data protection and IP strategies to safeguard and maintain the integrity of your brand across EMEA
- Provide access to, and manage where required, our network and community of local providers and experts
