Outside General Counsel
Your legal department, one engagement away.
Every serious business generates legal questions weekly — a contract to sign, an employee issue, a regulator's letter. Hiring an in-house lawyer for that is expensive. Ignoring it is more expensive. Outside general counsel is the third option.
What it is
A standing relationship, not a one-off matter. Law Quarters acts as your company's general counsel from the outside: we learn your business once, then handle the flow of legal questions as they come — quickly, because the context is already in place.
What's typically covered
Contracts pipeline — review and negotiation of the agreements crossing your desk, with a standard turnaround.
Day-to-day advisory — quick answers on employment, regulatory, and commercial questions before they become disputes.
Governance hygiene — board resolutions, filings, registers, and the paperwork that protects you in a dispute.
Risk watch — flagging gazette announcements, new regulations, and legal developments that affect your sector.
Escalation judgement — knowing when a matter needs a specialist or litigator, and managing that engagement for you.
Why outside counsel beats ad-hoc lawyering
Ad-hoc legal work has a hidden cost: every new matter starts from zero. The lawyer doesn't know your contracts, your risk appetite, or your history — so you pay for that education each time, in fees and in slower answers. A standing counsel relationship amortises that cost to zero. The second contract review is faster than the first; the tenth is faster still.
How engagements are structured
Typically a monthly retainer scoped around your volume — a set band of hours or matters, with clear terms for what falls outside it. Terms are agreed in a plain-language engagement letter before any work begins. No surprise invoices.