Fractional General Counsel for Startups & Technology Companies

I Quarterback Your Legal & Business Affairs.

Strategic legal leadership for founders and growing companies that need an experienced outside adviser coordinating legal priorities, commercial transactions, risk, and specialized counsel—without the overhead of a full-time general counsel.

You Don't Just Need a Business Lawyer. You Need a Lawyer Who Understands Business.

L.A. Tech & Media Law approaches legal advice in the context of how a company actually builds, launches, competes, raises capital, enters commercial relationships, protects intellectual property, and responds to disputes. Legal decisions often affect product strategy, market entry, deal economics, and enterprise value.

For qualifying clients, David Nima Sharifi, Principal Attorney, can serve as a central outside legal and business affairs adviser—helping founders and management identify priorities, coordinate resources, negotiate key transactions, and bring the appropriate specialists into the matter when needed.

Legal and Business Affairs. Optimized for Innovation®

What Is a Fractional General Counsel?

A fractional general counsel is an experienced outside attorney who serves as a company’s ongoing senior legal adviser on a part-time or recurring basis, without the company hiring a full-time in-house general counsel. For startups and growth-stage companies, the role can include prioritizing legal risk, negotiating key contracts, coordinating intellectual property and corporate matters, supervising specialized outside counsel, and advising founders and management on the legal implications of commercial decisions.

The terms fractional general counsel and outside general counsel often overlap. “Fractional” usually emphasizes an embedded, continuing role with a defined cadence or scope, while “outside counsel” can also describe project-based legal work. The appropriate structure depends on the company’s stage, legal workload, internal team, and business objectives.

For a technology startup, a fractional GC can become the central point of legal coordination across formation and governance, founder and investor issues, intellectual property, technology and commercial agreements, marketing and advertising, employment questions, disputes, fundraising readiness, and other legal and business affairs.

Legal Risk

Intellectual property, contracts, corporate governance, compliance, employment issues, disputes, liability, and coordination with specialized counsel.

Market Risk

Product scope, positioning, launch readiness, market entry, partnerships, distribution, and other commercial considerations that can change legal priorities.

Financial Risk

Capital allocation, fundraising, deal economics, commercial commitments, customer-acquisition economics, and the financial consequences of legal decisions.

What a Fractional General Counsel Can Quarterback

Legal Strategy

Prioritizing intellectual property, contracts, corporate governance, compliance, dispute prevention, and litigation risk based on the company’s actual stage and objectives.

Business Affairs

Negotiating and structuring licensing, strategic partnerships, vendor and customer agreements, content and media deals, technology transactions, and other commercial relationships.

Executive Coordination

Providing founders and management with a central legal point of contact and coordinating with accountants, patent counsel, employment counsel, litigators, regulatory specialists, investors, and other advisers as the company grows.

Risk and Deal Triage

Helping management distinguish urgent legal risks from lower-priority issues, identify leverage, sequence projects, and allocate legal resources more efficiently.

Startup Strategy as a Commercial Input to Legal Advice

For startups and innovation-driven companies, legal strategy can be more useful when counsel understands the language of modern entrepreneurship. Depending on the engagement, we may consider concepts such as MVP (Minimum Viable Product), POC (Proof of Concept), PMF (Product-Market Fit), GTM (Go-to-Market strategy), CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), and the 4Ps of marketing as commercial inputs when evaluating legal and business affairs strategy.

The objective is not to promise product-market fit, customer growth, fundraising success, or financial performance. It is to make legal advice more commercially informed—for example, deciding when to invest in IP protection, how to structure an early partnership, what contractual commitments are appropriate before product validation, or which legal projects should precede a financing or launch.

For founders seeking formation, founder-equity, IP, contract, fundraising-readiness, and startup legal planning, see our Technology Startup Legal Services.

Who This Model Is Designed For

A fractional or outside general counsel relationship can be particularly useful for:

Founder-led technology companies moving from MVP into commercialization.
Growing businesses with recurring contract, IP, compliance, and strategic legal needs.
Companies preparing for fundraising, strategic partnerships, licensing, or M&A diligence.
Management teams that need one senior legal adviser to coordinate multiple workstreams and outside specialists.
Businesses that need sophisticated legal judgment on an ongoing basis but are not ready to hire a full-time in-house general counsel.

Engagement scope, availability, pricing, and the division of responsibility between LATML and any specialist counsel are defined for each client based on the company’s needs.

Fractional General Counsel: Common Questions

When should a startup hire a fractional general counsel?

A startup may benefit from fractional general counsel when legal work becomes recurring and interconnected—for example, when the company is negotiating customer and vendor contracts, managing founder or investor matters, protecting IP, hiring personnel, preparing to raise capital, launching regulated or data-intensive products, or coordinating several outside specialists.

What does a fractional general counsel handle?

The scope is engagement-specific. It can include legal prioritization, contract review and negotiation, intellectual property strategy, corporate and governance coordination, legal due diligence, dispute triage, commercial partnerships, compliance issue-spotting, and management of specialized outside counsel.

How is fractional general counsel different from hiring a full-time GC?

A full-time general counsel is an employee dedicated to one company. A fractional GC is outside counsel who provides senior legal leadership for an agreed portion of the company’s needs. For companies that do not yet require a full-time in-house lawyer, this can provide experienced legal oversight without creating a full-time executive position.

How is a fractional general counsel engagement structured?

The relationship can be structured around a recurring scope, a defined monthly allocation, a project-linked arrangement, or another engagement model appropriate to the company’s needs. Scope, availability, responsibilities, and fees are set out in the engagement agreement.

Does LATML provide fractional general counsel for technology startups?

Yes. L.A. Tech & Media Law Firm provides fractional and outside general counsel services for qualifying technology startups and growth-stage ventures, with particular focus on intellectual property, technology transactions, contracts, business affairs, due diligence, disputes, and coordination of specialized counsel. The firm is based in Los Angeles, California.

One Strategic Adviser. An Integrated Perspective.

If your company needs ongoing legal leadership across intellectual property, contracts, transactions, disputes, compliance, and business affairs, schedule a confidential consultation to discuss whether a fractional general counsel relationship is appropriate.