You need one when
Contracts move faster than anyone can read them
Deals are closing on terms a founder skimmed at midnight, and nobody owns the question of which terms are actually acceptable.
The board starts asking about risk
Questions about IP ownership, data handling and compliance now arrive with an audience, and the honest answer is that nobody is tracking it.
A full time GC is not justified yet
A full time general counsel is a senior six figure hire plus equity. Below a certain scale that person spends half the week underused.
What a Fellow fractional GC owns
Not just advice. The decisions, the systems, and the people who execute them.
Fractional, outsourced, or full time
A solo fractional GC is one person's calendar. When they are in a board meeting, your deal waits. Fellow pairs a GC level lead with the team that drafts, files and negotiates behind them. If you need one specific deliverable rather than an owner, a startup lawyer engagement is the cheaper answer.
Questions founders ask
What does a fractional general counsel do?
They own your legal function part time: setting priorities, deciding what risk is acceptable, running fundraising and contract work, managing outside specialists, and answering to the board. The distinction from a regular lawyer is ownership. A fractional GC decides what should happen, not only how to do the thing you asked for.
How much does a fractional general counsel cost?
At Fellow it runs as a monthly subscription. Plans start at $1,690 per month for direct attorney access on Slack, $5,250 per month with two standard deliverables and a monthly strategy call included, and $10,900 per month for a dedicated attorney, five deliverables and bi weekly strategy calls. A full time general counsel is a senior six figure salary plus equity.
What is the difference between fractional and outsourced general counsel?
Fractional means someone embedded in your company part time who owns the legal function. Outsourced or outside general counsel usually means an external firm doing ongoing legal work without owning strategy. Fellow covers both, and we will tell you which one your stage actually calls for.
When should we hire a full time general counsel instead?
When legal volume genuinely fills a full week, when the work needs someone in internal meetings daily, or when regulatory exposure makes an employee the safer structure. That is usually somewhere around Series B or later, and it varies a lot by sector. We would rather tell you that you have outgrown us than keep billing you.
