How I Work
Two ways to buylegal services.
You can retain a firm when something goes wrong, or you can have counsel who already knows your organization when it does. The second is cheaper, faster, and produces better outcomes — it is also harder to find at a scale that works for a smaller organization. That is the gap this practice fills.
Outside general counsel
I hold the context.
For most clients, I function as an outside general counsel. That means I hold the context. I know your governance structure, your funding constraints, your board dynamics, and the two or three issues most likely to surface this year. When something comes up, you are not paying someone to learn your organization before they can help you.
It also means you get a straight answer about whether something needs a lawyer at all. A meaningful share of what comes to me is resolved with a conversation and a redrafted paragraph.
Connector, not a bottleneck
No single practitioner covers every question.
When a matter needs specialist counsel — complex tax, securities, immigration, litigation at scale — I bring in the right person and stay involved. You get the specialist without having to find, vet, and brief them yourself, and without the handoff losing the context of why the matter matters to you.
The alternative is a general counsel who says yes to work outside their range. That costs more and produces worse results.
Resolutions that hold
The legal answer and the practical answer aren’t always the same.
Every dispute has a legal answer and a practical one, and they are not always the same. The legal answer is what you are entitled to. The practical answer accounts for what it costs you to insist on it — in money, in time, in board attention, and in how you are described afterward by people whose opinion affects your funding.
My working assumption is that you want the resolution that leaves you strongest twelve months from now, not the one that feels most satisfying this week. Where those differ, I will say so, and you decide.
How engagements are structured
Ongoing, project, or hourly — whichever fits.
Most clients work on an ongoing basis — a monthly arrangement that covers the questions as they arise, rather than a meter running on every call. Defined projects are quoted as projects. Unpredictable work is billed hourly. Which structure fits is usually clear after one conversation.
If you are not sure whether what you are dealing with needs a lawyer, that is usually a good reason to ask.
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