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OUTSOURCED GENERAL COUNSEL

The legal function, without the headcount

For established businesses from £5m turnover carrying the work of a legal department without one. A named senior solicitor leads it, with specialist solicitors behind them, on a fixed monthly fee.

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Fixed monthly fee icon Fixed monthly fee SRA-regulated solicitors icon SRA-regulated solicitors Monthly board reporting icon Monthly board reporting
  • ComplyCube
  • Athona
  • Virgin
  • Kaikaku
  • City Contractors
  • Osmo
  • Global Tech
  • Simply smarter
  • LSET
  • Restoreo
  • Bathlettings
  • Beagle
  • Pantheon Properties
Legal strategy

When law becomes part of the decision

By this stage legal is an input to how the business is run: which customers you can take on, what you can commit to, how quickly you can hire, what you can say about the product. The question is not whether you need advice, it is whether it is available while the decision is being made. Advice sought afterwards can only describe what has already been agreed.

Good legal work is commercial first. Not a list of risks, but a read on what the business is trying to do and how to get it there with the least friction.

James Conning

Senior Commercial Solicitor, Lawyerly

Portrait photo

James Conning

Senior Commercial Solicitor, Lawyerly

Advice that arrives after the position is set Terms are agreed, the offer is made, the supplier appointed, and legal sees it at signature. The work that follows is remedial, and the leverage has gone.
The questions that never get asked On hourly rates, the judgement calls that shape a business are the ones least likely to justify an instruction. They are made without advice, not through carelessness but because the clock makes asking a decision in itself.
No one carrying the commercial context A firm instructed matter by matter starts each one from the beginning. Nobody holds what was agreed last quarter, why it was agreed, and how it bears on what is being negotiated now.
A board position assembled from fragments Directors are accountable for legal risk they can only see in pieces. There is no single record of what is open, what it is worth, and what has been decided since the last meeting.

The Lawyerly model

How the engagement works

Your named solicitor works a step ahead of the business, so legal shapes decisions rather than reacting to them. Four things make that structural rather than aspirational.

A named lead solicitor

One senior solicitor who learns how your business makes decisions, and stays in place. Our solicitors are employed rather than freelance, so continuity is built into the arrangement rather than promised.

Specialist depth behind them

When a matter calls for an employment specialist or a data protection lead, that solicitor takes it on under your lead's direction. You keep a breadth a single appointment does not give you.

A fixed monthly fee

Agreed in advance. No hourly billing, so nobody weighs the cost of a question before asking it.

Full visibility

Every matter is tracked in the Client Hub, so you know what is open, what is progressing and who is acting on it, with a monthly report written for your board.

SERVICE SCOPE

What sits with us

The breadth and consistency of an in-house legal department, without building one. Everything below is included as standard, alongside unlimited everyday advice across the business. Ask as often as you need, without the call ending in an invoice.

  • Everyday legal advice

    Unlimited day-to-day advice across the business. Ask as often as you need, without the call ending in an invoice.

  • NDAs & digital terms

    NDAs, website terms, platform terms, and data processing agreements.

  • Commercial contracts

    Drafting, reviewing and negotiating customer, supplier and service agreements.

  • Employment law & HR

    Contracts, policies, grievances, disciplinaries and redundancy support.

  • Shareholder & founder agreements

    Founder and shareholder agreements covering vesting, transfers and exit provisions.

  • Corporate governance

    Articles, directors' service agreements and ongoing corporate housekeeping.

  • Privacy & compliance

    Data protection documentation, compliance frameworks and breach guidance.

  • IP & trade marks

    UK trade mark searches, filings and brand protection. One filing fee included.

  • Commercial leases

    Leases up to three years in-house; longer leases with specialist property counsel, managed by your lead.

  • Dispute resolution

    Pre-action advice, letters before action and settlement negotiation.

  • Debt recovery

    Letters of demand, recovery strategy and enforcement of payment terms.

  • Proactive legal planning

    Regular legal reviews to surface risk early and align legal work with business priorities.

David Silvey

Legal Service Director

I spent years as in-house counsel. Legal works best when it sits with the business, not across the table from it.

David Silvey

Legal Service Director

IN PRACTICE

Accountable to your board, alongside your advisers

Your plan includes a monthly board report and a live Client Hub. The board sees every open matter, who is acting on it and where it stands. Advice given and decisions taken sit in a complete record, ready for the board pack. That audit trail holds across solicitors and across matters, so the line of sight your board relies on does not break when personnel or scope change.

Most established businesses already work with a specialist firm for the matters outside an everyday legal function: court advocacy, major transactions, sector regulation, anything beyond England and Wales. We do not replace that. We hold the everyday work and your specialist firm holds the dedicated briefs. Your named lead becomes the institutional memory across both, briefing the firm with full context, reviewing its work commercially, and coordinating when more than one adviser is involved.

THE LAWYERLY DIFFERENCE

How Lawyerly compares

There are three ways to hold a legal function at this size: hire a general counsel, in full or fractionally; instruct a firm by the hour; or appoint an outsourced general counsel. Each has a real strength. Only one gives you breadth, continuity, a fixed cost and a team that works ahead of you.

The alternatives
No,
Cost Salary or retainer, plus the overheads of a hire
No,
Depth One lawyer across every area
No,
Continuity One person; when they are away, so is the function
Yes,
Commercial context Embedded, full time or part time
No,
Visibility Meetings and reports, as arranged
No,
Cost Hourly, billed matter by matter
No,
Depth Specialists, but you coordinate them
No,
Continuity A different associate on each matter
No,
Commercial context Outside your commercial context
No,
Visibility Invoice narratives and progress updates
The Lawyerly way
Your outsourced general counsel
Yes,
Cost One fixed monthly fee, agreed in advance
Yes,
Depth A named lead with specialists behind them
Yes,
Continuity Employed solicitors, so the function never pauses
Yes,
Commercial context Works ahead of the business, inside your decisions
Yes,
Visibility Every matter live in the Client Hub, with a monthly board report
Client spotlight: Virgin Experience Days

One legal team for every experience

Our work for Virgin Experience Days spans every department, which means we see their business as a whole rather than as a series of isolated legal questions. That perspective is precisely what allows our work to be consistent and commercial.
Lawyerly Legal Service Director Patricia Tinn
Contracts at scale Supplier, partner and customer agreements kept moving.
Employment & IP Day-to-day advice plus protection for the brand behind the experiences.
Legal spend management We brief, instruct and oversee specialists, so hours stay lean.
CLIENT TESTIMONIALS

What our clients say about working with us

4.8 on Google

A fresh approach. Exceptional value.

A fresh approach to legal services. They've guided us through multiple planned and reactive cases for our business. Exceptional turnaround times and great value for money.

Kerry Power Client Relations, Pantheon Property Services
The Enterprise plan

Your everyday legal function, on a fixed monthly fee

A first in-house lawyer at this size is typically an £80,000 to £120,000 salary. With employer national insurance and pension, that is roughly £95,000 to £143,000 a year in employment cost, before recruitment fees and before the months the seat sits empty. The Enterprise plan is £1,579 per month plus VAT for a dedicated senior solicitor, specialist depth across every service area, and a monthly board report. Book a complimentary consultation and we will set out how it would work for your business.

Established businesses

Enterprise

Ideal for businesses that need the output of a legal department, with senior judgement, without the headcount. Typically £5m to £10m turnover.

£1,579 £1,421

per month + VAT

Save £1,895/yr
What’s included
  • Unmetered everyday legal advice
  • Unlimited  No limit on the number of matters in your subscription year, subject to fair use and our terms.
  • A dedicated senior solicitor and commercial associate
  • Pre-action disputes  When something escalates, your solicitor assesses your position, takes over the correspondence, responds to threats and claims, and runs the matter through to settlement. Where a matter needs to go to court, we introduce a specialist litigator, brief them properly, and stay on as your day-to-day legal contact.
  • All lease agreements  Leases up to 3 years are handled by your dedicated solicitor. For longer leases we brief specialist property counsel, manage the process end to end, and contribute up to £1,200 towards their fees per lease. Anything above that is agreed with you upfront.
  • Monthly proactive legal review
  • Free trade mark registration  We cover the official UK Intellectual Property Office fee for one trade mark application in one class each year. You can file more, you just pay the IPO fee on the rest.
  • We work alongside your specialists  When a matter needs a specialist, whether that's litigation, a transaction, tax, or patents, you don't have to run them yourself.
  • 30% off fixed-fee projects
COMMON QUESTIONS

The questions people usually ask

Straight answers on how an outsourced general counsel works, what it covers and how we charge.

An outsourced general counsel gives a business the role a general counsel would fill, without employing one. At Lawyerly that means a named senior solicitor leading your legal function as outsourced in-house counsel, with specialist solicitors behind them for employment, data protection and the other areas as they arise, on a fixed monthly fee. The work, the advice and the record of decisions sit in the Client Hub, with a monthly report for your board.

A fractional general counsel is one experienced lawyer working part of your week, usually as a contractor. It solves the cost of a full-time hire and keeps the single point of failure: one person, one set of specialisms, and no cover when they are unavailable. An outsourced general counsel puts a named senior solicitor in the same lead role, with a firm of specialists behind them and a fixed monthly fee. The lead holds the relationship. The depth sits behind them.

For the everyday legal function, yes. We hold contracts, employment, data protection, governance and day-to-day advice, with specialist depth behind your named lead. What we do not do is reserved work such as court litigation and advocacy, or law outside England and Wales. Most clients keep a specialist firm for those briefs, and your lead coordinates with them.

The Enterprise plan starts at £1,579 per month plus VAT, agreed in advance. The fee reflects the breadth and pace of work the plan is calibrated for, not a clock. There is no hourly billing, and no charge for emails, calls or short queries.

Immediately. After an initial consultation you are set up on the Client Hub the same day, where identity and compliance checks are completed in minutes. Your named lead then starts by building a legal strategy with you and mapping the work, so the plan is taking shape from the first week.

Our solicitors are individually regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and bound by its Code of Conduct. Lawyerly itself is not an SRA-authorised firm, which is the modern legal services model the SRA introduced in 2019. The solicitors who deliver your work remain personally accountable to the same professional standards.

Our solicitors are bound by the SRA Code of Conduct and by professional confidentiality. We run conflict checks before taking on any new work, and if a conflict arises we tell you and manage it under our professional obligations.

Your data is handled under our privacy policy and in line with UK GDPR. Where we process personal data on your behalf, our data processing addendum sets out what we process and why, and we maintain a list of subprocessors.

The work does not stop with them. Because every matter is recorded in the Client Hub with a full audit trail, another solicitor can pick it up with the context already in front of them. Continuity is the point of the model, not an exception to it.

TALK TO US

Ready to hand over the legal function?

Book a complimentary consultation with one of our founders. We will look at how legal work is handled in your business today, what is currently unowned, and how the plan would take it on.

Willem van der Merwe

Co-Founder

Read profile