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A startup lawyer helps founders incorporate, raise capital, issue equity, hire, and sign customer contracts without creating problems for the next round. Fellow does that work at flat fees, with answers in hours rather than weeks.
Behind startups backed by YC, a16z, Insight, Index, neo, and nvidia.
Most firms bill for time, which means their incentive is to spend more of it. Three things follow from that, and founders feel all three.
When every email is billable, founders stop asking. The expensive mistakes tend to be the ones nobody wanted to pay to ask about.
Hourly means approving a budget you cannot see yet. A flat fee puts the price before the work instead of after it.
Large firms often staff associates on routine documents, then bill the partner review on top of it.
The recurring legal work of a venture backed company, priced before it starts.
Delaware C corp or LLC, founder vesting, 83(b) filings, and a cap table that survives diligence.
From $2,900SAFEs, convertible notes, priced rounds, board approvals, and filings from term sheet to wire.
SAFE or CLA from $2,400Option pool design, ISO and NSO grants, advisor agreements, and the paperwork that keeps grants clean.
From $3,500Service agreements, SLAs, DPAs, and the redlines that decide whether an enterprise deal closes this quarter.
Drafting and review from $490Offer letters, contractor agreements, and IP assignment, so the work your team does belongs to the company.
From $750Board minutes, annual compliance, and cap table cleanups, done before an investor finds the gaps.
From $1,800Three different problems, three different answers. Most founders start at the first and move down over time.
You need a specific document: a formation, a SAFE, an option plan, a contract review. Pay a fixed price, get the deliverable, no retainer.
Flat fee work from $490Questions arrive weekly and you want an attorney team on Slack rather than a new engagement letter every time.
Subscriptions from $1,690 per monthRounds and contracts are moving faster than founders can review them and the board is asking about risk. That is a fractional general counsel.
I worked with over 10 different lawyers. Fellow is fast, responsible with predictable cost and most importantly they are my fellow :)
Kroni Hope
GRAET, San Francisco
Working with Fellow gives us clarity and confidence in managing our legal budget, enhances proactive communication with our lawyers, and helps us stay ahead of potential issues.
David Spunar
FaceUp, Prague
It depends on whether you are buying a document or a relationship. Fellow prices defined work at a flat fee: formations from $2,900, a SAFE issuance from $2,400, contract drafting or review from $490. Ongoing support runs as a monthly subscription from $1,690. Strategy calls and live negotiations are billed hourly, because there the value is judgment rather than a document.
Before you incorporate, if you can. The two cheapest moments to get legal right are the day you form the company and the day you issue the first equity. Founder vesting, IP assignment, and 83(b) elections all carry deadlines that are difficult or impossible to fix afterwards.
A startup lawyer does the work. A general counsel owns the function: deciding what gets done, what risk is acceptable, and when to bring in a specialist. Most companies need the first long before they can justify the second.
Yes. Our focus is US law and founders building in the San Francisco Bay Area, and a large share of our clients are European companies setting up a US entity. Some of our team are qualified in other jurisdictions, which helps when a matter has a European side to it.
Very little of it is litigation. It is formation documents, equity grants, financing paperwork, customer contracts, and hiring documents, plus the judgment calls about which terms to argue over and which to concede.
Tell us what you are working on. We will tell you what it costs before we start.
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