Embedded legal talent for high-growth companies.

Fractional Counsel offers scaleup and enterprise clients the dedicated legal and strategic counsel they've been missing.

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Cost-effective

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Responsive

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Insightful

Mike Neylan
Cleantech & Private Equity

Pauline Chan
Manufacturing & Retail

Sebastian Elawny
Blockchain & Web3

Peter Yates
Energy & Cannabis

Elizabeth Abidogun
Real Estate

Tyler Seminuk
Fintech & Marketplaces

Trusted by

Working with a big firm.

We had a six-figure annual legal spend and still felt like a second class citizen with the big firms.

Mike Bignold
CEO, CostCertified
Y-Combinator Alumni

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Expensive

Billable hours, bad incentives and blank cheques. The longer the firm takes, the more you pay in fees.

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Slow

Lawyers at big firms have hundreds of clients and priority goes to the big ones who help hit 2000-hour targets.

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Disconnected

External firms are too far removed from your business to efficiently address your operational needs.

Working with a Fractional Counsel.

Fractional Counsel is designed for scaling businesses that need reliable legal counsel to manage their growing legal needs.

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Cost-effective

Fractional GC plans start at as little as $2,500 per month, with 90-day rollovers and no surprises.

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Responsive

Embedded legal support from a dedicated lawyer ready to move at the speed of your business.

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Insightful

Industry expertise, prior in-house experience, and strategic legal leadership added to your team.

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85% of legal departments place controlling their outside counsel costs as their highest priority — Thompson Reuters

How It Works

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1. Meet our talent.

We recruit top lawyers with big law and in-house experience to find you the perfect fit.

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2. Design the role.

Collaborate with our team to design the scope of your 90-day Pilot engagement.

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3. Launch your Pilot.

Follow our proven best practices to onboard, integrate, and optimize your FGC.

Our Fractional Legal Talent

Goodlawyer has a diverse network of lawyers with experience working at top international law firms and in-house at global enterprises.

Top talent

from top law firms and in-house teams added monthly

4.9 star

average client review about a Goodlawyer

10+ years

average experience in big firm or in-house roles

88 NPS

customer satisfaction 3.5x legal industry average

Diverse

Over 50% women or from equity-deserving groups

Cost-effective

Hourly rates that are a fraction of the big firm rates

Our lawyers have worked at:

Flexible Engagements and Pricing

With Fractional Counsel you get expert legal counsel at less than half the hourly rate of senior big firm lawyers.

Responsive

10 hours per month

A responsive legal resource for recurring legal needs like negotiating commercial contracts.

Avg. FGC Rate:

$250-$300/hr

Avg. Monthly Cost:

$2,700

Savings*:

44%

Proactive

20-30 hours per month
A proactive legal partner to support growing teams, new product launches, & scaling sales operations.

Avg. FGC Rate:

$230-$270/hr

Avg. Monthly Cost:

$4,900

Savings*:

50%

Strategic

30+ hours per month
A strategic leader to manage high-volume legal needs by operationalizing your legal function.

Avg. FGC Rate:

$200-$240/hr

Avg. Monthly Cost:

$7,200

Savings*:

56%

  • *Savings from the average hourly rate for Canadian business lawyers with 10+ years of experience ($540/hr).

  • Don't pay for the time you don't use. Unused hours are banked and rolled forward for future use.

  • Overflow hours are billed at the applicable Fractional GC Rate.

Goodlaywer is not a traditional legal firm...in all the best ways.

They streamlined our contracting process so we're able to turn around contracts faster, understand our risk and reduce our overhead costs when signing new clients.

Victor Tay

COO & Co-founder of MinervaAI

Frequently Asked Questions

As an embedded team member, a Fractional Counsel is there to create and serve a longterm business relationship, not a one-off transaction. Fractional Counsels integrate into your organization and get to know your team to become an expert in your business — producing actionable and specific legal advice that supports better business decisions.

They can improve internal operations and strategy by proactively mitigating risks before issues arise and can even replace the senior law firm partner as the CEO’s primary counsellor participating in decisions that touch both law and business.

When you hire a Fractional Counsel on Goodlawyer, we work hard to tailor the options we present you based on your business’ specific legal needs. Whether for commercial contracts, regulatory compliance, or employment and people matters. we help you hand-pick a Fractional Counsel to address the needs of your legal function.

The Goodlawyer network spans from coast to coast and has lawyers with specialized expertise in most areas of law. If your Fractional Counsel encounters an issue outside their area of practice, they can bring in any Goodlawyer in our network to get the job done.

*Additional fees may apply if the project is out of scope for the Fractional mandate.

See a list of our practice areas here.

All Fractional Counsel mandates begin with a 90-day rollover window where you can use any unclaimed hours.

We conduct monthly check-ins with you and your Fractional Counsel throughout the 90-day Pilot project. If your legal needs increase or the pilot is underestimated, we can make the required adjustments to the terms of the Fractional mandate for the next month.

A Fractional Counsel is embedded into your team to proactively manage your legal needs whereas a law firm retainer engages an outside counsel to react to your legal needs and requests.

The longer version — Your Fractional Counsel dedicates part of their week entirely to working with you and your business. They join your team to absorb and assume responsibility for legal operations from your executive team, contribute to key business decisions and issues, AND to manage specialist engagements with outside counsel.

When you pay a law firm a retainer, you are essentially paying to keep a law firm on standby to respond to major events that trigger your need for legal help. Unless you actively request help, your external lawyer will not proactively support your recurring legal operations, volunteer strategic value-added advice or design processes and procedures that better equip your team to efficiently manage common legal challenges. As a result, your business’s operational legal functions remain the core responsibility of your executive team, making them reactive, inefficient and more costly.

Our top priority for Fractional mandates is to ensure an undeniably good fit between your business and your lawyer. One of the biggest benefits of Fractional Counsel is the compounding effect of having a dedicated lawyer who becomes intimate with all the nuances of your business over time.

We work hard to present you with appropriate options the first time, but if for whatever reason you need to change lawyers, we can make it happen. Our network is diverse and robust, odds are good we’ll find you the one!

Once you’ve selected your lawyer and confirmed the 90-day Pilot, our Operations team will work with you and your Fractional Counsel to get fully integrated by following our proven best practices.

Typically, the first steps to a successful engagement include setting your Fractional Counsel up with a company email address, scheduling a weekly recurring touchpoint with your FGC and getting a contract into their hands and off of your desk. Our FGCs are keen to roll up their sleeves and ready to take on immediate tasks while working with management to identify longer term priorities.

Every Pilot mandate is different and custom tailored to your needs.

There is always an onboarding period where your Fractional Counsel gets set up with your business (email, files, internal channels, etc.), starts tackling some immediate wins like reviewing key contracts, and works with your management team to plan longer term objectives.

Throughout the 90-day Pilot, the Goodlawyer Operations team will check in and ensure your project is on track for a successful outcome. The Pilot will close with an overall review to ensure there are no adjustments required before continuing the Fractional Counsel mandate.

Of course. Your Fractional Counsel will be able to take a lot off their plate (and save you a ton in legal fees) but they can also take responsibility for managing and working alongside those external legal providers.

Get started with Fractional GC

Talk to our team to learn more about Fractional General Counsel and how it could work in your business.