Consultant Legal Counsel

Howard McKay

Email:

howardmckay@legaledge.co.uk

Phone:

+44 (0)20 3086 8909

LinkedIn:

Howard is a senior legal and compliance lawyer with more than twenty years of experience, specialising in technology, AI and regulated sectors. A former barrister turned in-house counsel, he combines commercial insight with practical legal expertise to help businesses manage risk, navigate complexity and achieve their growth ambitions.

He has extensive experience supporting technology-led and international businesses on commercial contracts, compliance, corporate governance, M&A, data protection, cybersecurity, ESG and dispute resolution. Howard is particularly skilled at balancing legal risk with commercial objectives, helping businesses move quickly and confidently in fast-changing and highly regulated environments.

Working closely with founders, leadership teams and investors, Howard focuses on delivering pragmatic, business-focused solutions rather than legal complexity. He is also passionate about using technology to improve the way legal teams operate, designing scalable processes and AI-enabled tools that streamline contracting, improve visibility of risk and make it easier to do business. Whether designing legal processes that scale, negotiating strategic transactions or resolving complex issues, Howard delivers clear, commercially focused advice that helps businesses grow with confidence.

Useful to know:

Outside of work, Howard is a keen golfer and a member of Knole Park Golf Club and Sevenoaks Hockey Club. When he’s not helping businesses navigate legal and commercial challenges, you’ll find him on the fairway, the hockey pitch, or making the most of the outdoors.

Worked with:

Howard was Group General Counsel at Electrosonic and NSC Global, and previously held senior legal and dispute resolution roles at BT Plc. He began his legal career as a barrister at the Chambers of Lord Thomas QC.

What do our clients think?

Working with LegalEdge means that we've been able to reduce the amount of legal support we need by 20%, saving money as well as delivering a better and more efficient service
CFO - Bright Network
LegalEdge have allowed us to operate with efficiency and agility across all of our requirements, at a fraction of the costs without compromising on experience and expertise.
CFO - Talion
LegalEdge’s fractional in-house lawyers provided expert, no-nonsense legal support right when we needed it — practical, efficient, and reliable.
Founder - Workflow Science
What is special about LegalEdge is that they take time to understand our culture and strategy so that the legal advice is always relevant and appropriate to how we operate.
Chief People Officer - Clarasys
LegalEdge took the time to understand our business first and then introduced us to an expert in our field who was best placed to support our growth plans.
VP Finance & Operations - Arctic Shores
Legal Edge have been amazing for us. We love the fact that we get to work with brilliant legal talent with many years of experience and experts in their fields.
Founder & COO - Saint & Sofia
Our lawyer quickly understood our business needs and assisted us in a commercial and pragmatic way.
CFO - Sanctus
Most commercial and practical legal support. Fast, efficient and absolutely cutting straight to the crux of the issue.
Commercial Product Director - NatureMetrics
Having an experienced lawyer as your single point of contact to manage legal matters effectively whilst providing pragmatic solutions is exactly what you get from LegalEdge
Legal & Compliance Officer - Distributed
We have found LegalEdge to be highly competitive, extremely effective and very commercial. They get the job done! A true partnership.
CFO - Talion
LegalEdge has provided invaluable support, and their customer service is second to none.
BD Director - Toca.io
LegalEdge’s practical approach to our day-to-day legal requirements has been second to none. I highly recommend their commercial contract support – it’s a game changer.
COO/CFO - Fluent Commerce
Our lawyers at LegalEdge have been fantastic partners to our company. They are pragmatic, responsive and personable.
Compliance Lead - Streetbees
We’re very pleased with the work LegalEdge are doing for us. We’re getting quick and decisive responses that are really helping us move forward.
FINANCE & OPERATIONS DIRECTOR - DEPOP
Our original MSA was very one-sided and not favourable to us, with LegalEdge’s help getting this agreement in place we have significantly reduced the risk to the agency.
Operations Director – Contracts and Commercial, - The Social Element
LegalEdge has provided unparalleled legal support to our EMEA business as our in-house lawyers to help us negotiate our software license contracts successfully and quickly.
VP & GM EMEA - Wherescape
The Intellectual Property audit provided by LegalEdge was extremely thorough. Securing our IP is enabling us to scale confident that our brand is protected under the law.
Founder - Arishi
The advice we have received has been superb. We have been impressed with every LegalEdge lawyer we have worked with.
Founder & COO - Saint & Sofia
It’s not an understatement that the new contracts gave us a lot of confidence in negotiating. It sets the right tone with our clients that we know what we are doing.
Operations Director - OneSixOne
Working with Legal Edge is seamless - the support we receive is always timely and clear.
Chief People Officer - Clarasys
I don’t always need the technicalities of a matter; LegalEdge provide pragmatic solutions that help us to close the deal.
Co-founder - Lexonis
Using LegalEdge means we can access their vast legal expertise as and when needed, on a flexible basis that suits us.
VP Finance & Operations - Arctic Shores
LegalEdge has provided excellent, commercially focused advice as part of our in-house legal team that has helped us close contracts with our customers and partners.
CEO - Diona
The fact that all their lawyers have worked inside businesses means they are commercial, pragmatic and know exactly how to prioritise what’s important.
COO - Squirro
Having made the decision to outsource our legal work, we have been extremely impressed by how quickly LegalEdge have quickly understood our business.
Commercial Director - The Social Element
LegalEdge understood our needs more than any traditional law firm had before: we were able to dip in and dip out of their services, they acted like a general counsel for us.
Co-Founder - Young Foodies
We use LegalEdge for support on our contracts, and they do an excellent job!
Director - Haig Barrett Partners
LegalEdge are awesome at taking complex ideas and turning them into simple contracts whilst streamlining processes to make it easy to do business.
Founder - Lola Tech, a DataArt company
The LegalEdge team just intuitively understood our business and needs, picked up the matters that needed dealing with, and ran with them.
General counsel - The Engine Group
Working with a professional squad like LegalEdge on the legal stuff means, as CFOs, we can focus on what we’re good at – the numbers!
Founder - Emergeone
LegalEdge were brilliant from start to finish in helping us to develop a proper brand strategy and implementing it.
CEO - Placemake.io
LegalEdge have been fantastic advisers to our business. Between shareholder agreements & fundraise, Trademark & IP, and commercial agreements, we deeply value their guidance.
Co-Founder - Days Brewing
Having worked closely with LegalEdge I have no hesitation in recommending them to any business requiring smart, articulate and professional legal counsel.
Founder - Low Carbon Group
Working with LegalEdge has been a breath of fresh air! They have provided a unique, entrepreneurial approach to legal services within a rapidly growing organisation.
COO and Co-Founder - hybris GmbH (now a SAP company)
The support we have received has been first class – from day one. LegalEdge have gone above and beyond to truly understand our business.
Director EMEA Operations - Stella & Dot
The ideal solution for the busy in-house counsel who is unable to add a permanent head as you have the ability to flex support without the need to rely on expensive law firms.
Vice President and EMEA Managing Counsel - World-Check [now Thomson Reuters]
LegalEdge’s experience has proven invaluable as they have picked up, negotiated and completed contracts with commercial aptitude.
Group Counsel - Funding Circle
What sets LegalEdge apart is that they focus on problem solving and keeping issues in perspective. They know and understand our business and the array of legal issues we face.
Partner - Portal Tech Reply
As our trusted go to lawyers for complex contract queries and negotiations, LegalEdge know how to focus on the things that matter and to get deals done.
Commercial Director - Connect Managed
The Oxial team was very impressed with the quality of the contracts that the LegalEdge team produced for our business and with their responsive and collaborative approach.
COO - Hammer Team & Oxial

Cookie	Duration	Description
_ga	2 years	The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors.
_gat_gtag_UA_32854648_1	1 minute	Set by Google to distinguish users.
_gid	1 day	Installed by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.

Consultant Legal Counsel

Howard McKay

Useful to know:

Worked with:

What do our clients think?

Contact

Navigate Site

Stay In Touch

We’ll set up a cost-effective, efficient legal function for your business. You’ll have an experienced lawyer as your single point of contact who works as part of your operations team.

We work with small in-house legal teams that need additional support on a flexible basis without adding to headcount.

Consultant Legal Counsel

Howard McKay

Useful to know:

Worked with:

What do our clients think?

But first, cookies 🍪