How much does a fractional general counsel cost?

A monthly retainer sized to how much legal work your company generates. At IRC Legal, retainers run from 10 to 40 hours a month in three tiers, quoted after a scoping call, with a 90-day initial commitment. Running a financing or a deal is billed separately, hourly at $680 to $800 or as a scoped fee. A full-time General Counsel typically runs $300,000 to $500,000 a year in salary and bonus alone.

The retainer is sized to the work, not to revenue or headcount. A twenty-person company signing customer contracts every week needs more hours than a hundred-person company with a stable book. So the number comes out of a scoping call, not a rate card.

How the retainer is built

Every engagement starts at 10 hours a month. Foundation is 10 to 15 hours, Growth is 20 to 30, and Scale is 30 to 40. Every tier gets the same structure: a weekly or biweekly standing call, a monthly written summary, and me on email, Slack, or Teams with a same-business-day response. The tiers differ in volume, not in role.

Each tier has a pre-agreed overage rate. When a month runs past the block, I flag it before it lands, not on the invoice. Month one usually runs heavier than the rest, because it opens with a two-week audit of the contracts, the cap table, employment practices, and board records. The audit is included, and the hours count against the tier.

What moves the number

Contract volume. Board and investor activity. Regulatory exposure. Hiring and terminations. And how much the leadership team wants me in the room rather than on call.

What is billed separately

Getting ready for a round or a sale is part of the job: capital-raise preparation and M&A readiness sit inside the retainer at Growth and Scale. Running the financing or the acquisition itself is billed beside it, hourly at $680 to $800 or on a scoped fee. The retainer keeps the company running while the deal runs.

Out of scope, always: courtroom litigation, patent and trademark prosecution, tax opinions, immigration, and complex benefits work. Those go to specialists I manage. Their fees are separate, but someone on your side is watching their meter.

How it compares

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. The honest comparison, though, is against what you spend now: the outside firm billing by the question, the founder's hours spent reading contracts, and the problem nobody caught until it got expensive.

Where the line is

If the company generates a legal question or two a month, you do not need a retainer. Hire me for the matter. If it generates them every week and nobody owns them, the retainer costs less than the alternative.

The terms

A 90-day initial commitment, long enough for the audit and the build to mean something. After that, either side can end it on one month's written notice. The full mechanics are in How a Fractional GC Engagement Actually Works.

Talk to Ian

Tell me what the company does, how many people, and what legal question is on your desk this week, and I will tell you which tier fits. 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.