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Who We Are / The Team / Karen Lee
Consultant Legal Counsel

Karen Lee

Karen Lee
Email:
karenlee@legaledge.co.uk
Phone:
+44 (0)7966 190184
LinkedIn:
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As a fractional Chief Legal Officer (CLO), Karen partners with high-growth tech businesses – and is particularly passionate about working with scaling healthtech and climatetech companies, many of whom are AI-native – to drive revenue growth, protect intellectual property, and enable business transformation. By combining legal insight with commercial acumen, she works alongside founders to navigate critical negotiations, manage risks, support regulatory compliance, and streamline governance. Whether negotiating key business opportunities or accelerating international expansion, Karen is committed to helping businesses scale while safeguarding their core assets.

Karen has worked with complex global clients across multiple jurisdictions. From negotiating market-first deals and establishing international offices to building in-house legal functions, she has a proven track record of driving double-digit revenue growth and delivering strategic legal solutions. She’s brilliant at streamlining contracts and processes, leading challenging contract negotiations, mitigating legal risks, reviewing employment contracts, and providing the day-to-day support needed to ensure businesses are compliant and well-positioned for sustainable growth.

In addition to providing strategic legal counsel, Karen helps businesses optimise legal spend, streamline external counsel, and establish an effective legal function or onboard first legal hires to build strong in-house teams. She also assists with cross-border regulatory and licensing reviews, enabling businesses to navigate complex international landscapes and prioritise market expansion. She enjoys partnering with dynamic businesses to tackle a vast array of legal challenges and opportunities, particularly at the scale-up stage.

Useful to know:

Karen is an active angel investor, member/mentor in a number of venture groups, and LP in a climate tech focused fund. She is passionate about climate issues, health and wellbeing and the arts. And is a qualified Pilates instructor and committed yogi and surfer. She speaks French, Cantonese, Portuguese and Turkish.

Worked with:

Karen was Global Head of Legal and Managing Director of BlackRock’s global technology business, Aladdin, and the Financial Markets Advisory consulting business. She trained at Allen and Overy and then worked in their capital markets, banking and corporate law practice in London, Dubai and Paris and was part of the founding team that established their Istanbul office. She’s worked with lots of tech start-ups as both an advisor and as a fractional CLO/COO.

What do our clients think?

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For Companies

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.

No duplication and no reinventing the wheel each time. We get to know your business quickly to manage your legal matters effectively and add value. And as your flexible in-house legal function, we can be scaled up or down depending on needs.

We analyse risk and prioritise what’s important, then manage and carry out the day-to-day legal work, all to a set budget. We’ve all worked as in-house lawyers in fast growth companies, so know what you need (and don’t need) to worry about. We’ll work with you to get deals and contracts done and help achieve your business goals.

“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

“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

For Legal Teams

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

Whether it’s overflow work, a project or just a much-needed extra pair of hands we can help. We get the job done without supervision, working seamlessly as part of your team or behind the scenes, whatever works best for you. We don’t do endless negotiations on the clock or write long legal memos. We just help prioritise, find solutions and get it done.We understand the challenges and demands of small in-house teams because we’ve been there. We work as an extension to your team, get up to speed on business priorities quickly, and help you keep control of legal workflow and budget.

“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 & EMEA Managing Counsel – Thomson Reuters

“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

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