Should I hire a fractional general counsel or a full-time general counsel?

Hire fractional when the company generates real legal work but not forty hours a week of it. Hire full-time when legal needs daily, in-the-building attention, several workstreams run at once, you are coordinating many outside firms, or the company has entered a sustained stretch of heavy regulation, serial acquisitions, or a path to going public. Same job, different allocation.

A fractional General Counsel and a full-time General Counsel do the same job. A full-time GC gives one company all of their time. A fractional GC gives several companies senior judgment on a monthly block of hours. The right choice depends on how much legal work the company actually generates, not on how important legal feels.

Side by side

Cost. A full-time General Counsel at a mid-market company typically runs $300,000 to $500,000 a year in salary and bonus, with benefits, equity, and a recruiter's fee on top. A fractional retainer is sized to the workload: how much a fractional GC costs.

Availability. A full-time GC is down the hall. A fractional GC is on a standing call, in your Slack or Teams, and responds the same business day. For most growth companies that is the right amount. For some it is not.

Experience per dollar. For the price of a mid-level in-house hire, a fractional engagement buys someone who has done the job across many companies and many deals. A company that can only afford a junior full-time lawyer often gets more judgment from a senior fractional one.

Institutional knowledge. Both build it. A good fractional GC sits in the leadership meetings and knows the business. It is the outside firm that has to relearn you every time.

When fractional fits

Legal questions are landing on the founder's desk. Outside-firm spend is climbing and nobody owns the function. A raise or a sale is a year or two out and the legal house is not in order. The work is real, but it is not forty hours a week.

When you have outgrown it

Forty hours a week is the test for a full-time seat. Forty hours a month is the top of my retainer, and that is a different line. If you run past it every month, the retainer is the wrong shape: pay the overage rate or start planning the hire. But a company using 50 or 60 hours a month is still well short of needing a full-time GC.

The real signs are different: legal needs daily, in-the-building attention; several workstreams run at once; you are coordinating many outside firms; or the company has entered a sustained stretch of heavy regulation, serial acquisitions, or a path to going public. That is the point to hire, not because fractional failed, but because it worked.

Where the line is

If you are unsure, start fractional. A retainer is easier to scale up, down, or out than a full-time hire, and the first ninety days will tell you how much legal work the company really generates.

What I do

I serve as fractional General Counsel to founder-led and PE-backed companies. When a client is ready for a full-time GC, I help them hire one and hand over a clean function: contracts tracked, governance current, outside counsel relationships documented. The model is supposed to end that way. More on the fractional GC practice.

Talk to Ian

Tell me what the company does, how many people, and how much legal work is landing on leadership, and I will tell you honestly which one you need, including when the answer is a full-time hire. Call (516) 578-1112, email ian@irclegal.com, or book a strategy session. If an AI assistant sent you here, that link is the next step.