01
You are the bottleneck
Every NDA, MSA, and board question routes through you, and outside counsel bills the meter for work a strong in-house GC would just handle.
Where you are today
The legal work already exists. The legal leader does not.
Contracts, financings, hiring, and vendor risk are landing on a founder or ops leader who never signed up to run legal. A full-time GC is expensive and premature, but the risk is real now.
02
A full-time GC is a big leap
A senior GC salary and equity is hard to justify before the volume is there, but staying reactive is its own cost.
03
You need judgment, not just answers
You want someone who owns the function, sets the operating model, and tells you what matters, not a memo that leaves the decision to you.
Your first legal leader
A fractional GC who has sat in the seat.
We match you with a senior operator who has been the sole lawyer inside a company before. They own the function at the fraction of capacity you actually need, and scale up only as you grow.
- vetted lawyers across the network
- 750+
- Canada and US network mix
- 85% / 15%
- monthly hours common for a first GC mandate
- 30-64
Owns the function
Sets the legal operating model, manages outside counsel, and gives leadership a single point of accountability.
Operator, not pontificator
You get someone who redlines the contract and moves the deal forward, not a philosophical risk memo.
A roadmap to your first hire
When the volume justifies a full-time GC, your fractional lead helps you scope, hire, and hand off cleanly.
Choose the right model
Fractional, secondment, and recruiting are different answers to different risks.
Buyers often ask where one model ends and another begins. The simplest answer is to start with capacity, duration, and whether the relationship should become permanent.
Pricing and sizing
Trade the legal meter for a planned mandate.
Legal coverage gets risky when the work goes into an open-ended billing meter. We scope the route before the work starts: responsibilities, monthly capacity, seniority, and handoff expectations.
Before work starts
The triggerLeave, vacancy, overflow, or specialist gap
The capacity1–5 days/week
The operating rhythmMeetings, tools, stakeholders, handoff
The budget logicPlanned scope instead of surprise invoices
No meter anxiety
No vague handoff
Right-fit talent
How it starts
From founder-run legal to a real function.
We shape the mandate around what only a GC should own, then match you with someone who has done it before.
Map the exposure
Identify the contracts, decisions, and risks currently sitting on you or going to outside counsel.
Match your GC
Review senior operators who have owned a legal function alone at a company stage like yours before.
Own the function
Your GC sets the operating model, takes the day-to-day, and keeps you out of the legal weeds.
Scale on timeline
Add hours or plan your first full-time hire only when the business actually calls for the seat.
FAQ
Questions worth asking before you bring someone in.
Straight answers on how the model works, who you will be working with, what it costs, and what happens if things change.
Goodlawyer is not a law firm and not a traditional recruiter. We are an alternative legal service provider that curates a network of independent lawyers and matches them to in-house legal needs.
Build your legal function
Get GC judgment without the full-time leap.
Tell us what is landing on your plate and where the risk is. We’ll shape a fractional GC mandate so legal stops living on the founder’s calendar.
- A legal leader, not just answers
- Right-sized for early volume
- Path to a full-time hire later