Fractional & Outside General Counsel for Growing Companies

What a fractional general counsel actually does

A fractional GC is not a document mill. The role is to sit close enough to the business to anticipate problems — the customer agreement that quietly shifts liability, the contractor who should have been classified as an employee, the co-founder arrangement that was never papered. Ingrid Rainey has served as general counsel and as a business executive, and brings that operator's lens to the legal work.

• Draft, review, and negotiate customer, vendor, and partnership agreements
• Day-to-day employment advice: hiring, classification, discipline, separations
• Employee handbooks, offer letters, NDAs, and contractor agreements
• Corporate governance: entity formation, minutes, board and member consents
• Trade secret, IP assignment, and confidentiality protection
• Demand letters, pre-litigation strategy, and outside-counsel management

Fractional GC vs. hiring in-house vs. hourly outside counsel

Hiring in-house means a full salary, benefits, and a single skill set. Sending every question to hourly outside counsel means the questions stop getting asked — which is how small issues become lawsuits. A fractional arrangement sits in between: a defined monthly scope, a known point of contact, and litigation capability behind it if a matter escalates.

• Predictable monthly cost instead of unpredictable hourly invoices
• One relationship that already knows your contracts, people, and history
• Trial-experienced counsel already in place if a dispute is filed
• Scales up during financings, audits, and M&A; scales back afterward

Who this fits

• Startups and founder-led companies past their first employees or first enterprise contracts
• Mid-market companies whose HR or finance lead is absorbing legal questions
• Companies expanding into California from another state, or into the U.S. from abroad
• Nonprofits and boards needing governance and compliance support
• Companies with in-house counsel who need employment or litigation depth

How an engagement starts

We begin with a confidential consultation to map what is actually in front of you: existing contracts, employment exposure, open disputes, and what the next twelve months look like. From there we scope a monthly engagement — or, when the need is narrower, a defined project. There is no obligation to convert a consultation into a retainer.