How the engagement works
Skeptical buyers usually aren't afraid of the price. They're afraid of the black box behind it, and of what shows up on the invoice. So here's the box, opened.
The 15-minute consult
You talk, we ask questions, and nobody pitches you anything. You leave with the two or three exposures we'd address first and a straight verdict on fit, including "you don't need us yet," which is something we say often. Nothing is billed for the call, and nothing automated follows it into your inbox.
The baseline (weeks 1 to 4)
If we engage, the order goes conflicts check, engagement letter, and then we read everything you have: charter, cap table, contracts, policies, vendor terms. What comes back is a written picture of where you stand, ranked by what matters, covering what's solid, what's urgent, and what's noise you can safely ignore for now. If the relationship ends right there, the baseline still has value, and it's yours either way.
The cadence
Work arrives in your Slack, or whatever channel your team already lives in, and it returns the same way. Same-day acknowledgment on anything new, with a substantive reply within two business days. There's a standing check-in set at whatever rhythm your deal flow actually needs, and urgent things get handled as urgent things instead of queuing behind routine work. You always know who's doing the work, because it's Gregory M. Hale. No rotation, no intake queue.
What the retainer covers
The standing engagement covers the general counsel function: contract review and negotiation within an agreed volume, employment questions, board support, vendor terms, and the running record. Larger bounded projects, meaning a financing, an acquisition, or a compliance build-out, are scoped and quoted separately, in writing, before any work begins. You will never discover a project by reading an invoice.
Outside firms and disputes
Litigation, patent prosecution, tax opinions, foreign law: we bring in outside firms that handle that work every day, manage them on your behalf, and translate what comes back into decisions you can actually make. One point of accountability holds throughout, so you are never the one doing the chasing.
Pausing and ending
You can adjust scope or end the engagement with 30 days' notice. Everything we built together, the playbooks, the templates, and the records, belongs to you and leaves with you. When you're ready for a full-time general counsel, we help you hire them and hand over a working function rather than a folder of files.
Related
Fifteen minutes. No pitch.
You talk, we diagnose. You leave with the two or three exposures worth addressing first, along with a straight answer on whether you need counsel now, including "not yet."