We act as part of your senior management team overseeing all of your legal affairs for a fixed fee each month.
We protect your business and prepare it for success without you needing to worry about the clock ticking.
It is time to stop fire fighting business problems and claiming that you have no legal issues.
We will show you how to use lawyers efficiently and free up your key directors to concentrate on running your business.
John is a Barrister with over 20 year's experience working as an in-house lawyer for a number of leading businesses including Lloyds TSB Group, GE Capital, Eaton Corporation, The Body Shop International and Domino's Pizza Group. Ed is a solicitor who became an in-house lawyer after 5 years at City firm Ashurst. He worked for more than 10 years in this role for a number of leading companies including Telewest, Dragon Oil, Angel Trains and BTG.
John and Ed discovered that they shared a vision for a new legal services model, which involves giving all businesses the opportunity to have their own in-house lawyer but on a flexible basis. They believe that if the use of in-house lawyers is good enough for the largest and best known businesses in our economy, then all businesses should have the opportunity to use in-house legal expertise.
During the past two years John and Ed have built up The Legal Director's network of lawyers who service a range of companies from start-ups to listed companies. They intend to develop The Legal Director into a household name providing legal services to businesses on a nationwide basis.
John Burchill is a senior commercial lawyer with extensive legal experience gained working for major UK and US companies as an employed in-house lawyer both in the UK and in Europe. He qualified as a Barrister in 1986.
Strong on strategy and a relationship builder, he has advised businesses across a number of industry sectors including financial services, fmcg, insurance, manufacturing, engineering, retail, franchising and health. He advises on general commercial contracts, M&A, employment law, management of disputes and litigation, franchising and a range of other legal matters. Increasingly John spends much of his time co-ordinating and providing strategic legal direction to businesses. He usually operates at Board level working with Chief Executives and Finance Directors. He also has extensive experience of instructing leading UK law firms and uses this experience and his contacts within the legal industry to recommend the best specialist solicitors for his clients when the need arises.
John is based in London and works with clients in the south east and in other parts of the UK.
He can be contacted using our contact form.
Ed Simpson is an experienced corporate/commercial lawyer who combines wide-ranging technical legal expertise with hands-on business experience to provide pragmatic solution-driven advice to businesses. Ed qualified as a Solicitor in 1991. Realising that in-house lawyers are extremely proficient at applying their legal expertise practically in the realities of the commercial world and can play a valuable role in any organisation, he set up his own business in 2007 with a view to making senior and experienced in-house lawyers available to all businesses.
He has particular experience in complex commercial contract work involving software and intellectual property rights, corporate issues faced by SMEs, litigation management, and employment law. Ed also has extensive experience of helping clients contracting in the USA and continental Europe and has acted as company secretary to a number of listed companies.
Ed is based in London and works with clients in the south east and in other parts of the UK.
He can be contacted using our contact form.
Kirstie Penk is an experienced commercial lawyer and was a part owner of a wireless computer networking company prior to taking a career break to have 2 children in 2006. Kirstie is now based in Sheffield and was appointed as a director of The Legal Director in 2011 having started with the company in 2009.
Kirstie has 10+ years experience of working as an in-house lawyer and has dealt with a wide range of legal and business issues in many different legal jurisdictions. Her work includes M&As, disposals, insolvencies, VC funding, manufacturing and supply agreements, software licensing, R&D agreements, distribution agreements, property and NASDAQ regulatory matters. Kirstie has a sensible, pro-active approach and excels at finding sound business solutions to complex issues.
Kirstie qualified in 1993 at Watson Farley and Williams in London, moving to set up a European Legal team for Madge Networks, a NASDAQ listed hi-tech company in 1994. Kirstie is based in Yorkshire and works with clients in the north of England and in other parts of the UK.
She can be contacted using our contact form.
For more information see Kirstie's LinkedIn Profile.
Tom Calvert-Lee is an experienced senior financial services lawyer and Compliance Officer with over twenty years experience - most recently operating at board level for a financial services company based in the City of London. He specialises in managing legal and regulatory risk for companies. Tom qualified as a solicitor in 1987 and worked for six years in private practice. He then moved to head the Legal department at Hill Samuel Investment Services Limited - a subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group. This role provided Tom with extensive and invaluable experience in regulation and compliance within a large banking and insurance group.
Since then he has worked as a senior lawyer for the UK branch of a global American employee benefit firm - Hewitt Associates Limited - and a consultancy firm in the City of London - Gissings Consultancy Service Limited.
In his most recent role as Head of Legal & Compliance with Gissings Consultancy Services Limited he acted as head of the Legal and Compliance functions as well as Company Secretary and Group Data Protection Officer responsible for data protection, data security and registering and protecting the company's trade marks. He also acted as Head of Risk Management, designing the company's Operational Risk Policy, monitoring compliance and being responsible for the Business Continuity Plan and testing. Tom has extensive experience in insurance matters, drafting and reviewing complex commercial agreements and directing complaint handing and overseeing litigation.
Tom is based in the City of London and can be contacted using our contact form.
Robert Ward Dyer qualified as a Solicitor in 1978 and worked for six years in private practice in London and the UAE before moving in-house. From 1984 until 2008 he worked for two major U.S. multinationals in branded consumer and industrial sectors (Sara Lee Corporation and Rockwell Automation, Inc.) acquiring extensive international experience throughout Europe and elsewhere.
He is effective at building relationships of trust with managers across the whole spectrum of business functions and at all levels, but with particular emphasis on support to CEO's and General Management, HR, Finance and other infrastructure staff through reorganisations and cultural change, as well as managing external lawyers. He sees the value of an in-house lawyer in 'integrated detachment' : taking care to understand the detail and practicalities of a business before objectively applying legal skills and judgment to facilitate its goals and help minimise cost and risk.
Aside from commercial legal work, he is the secretary and a trustee of a local educational/conservation charity in West London, and a school governor; and he teaches English to foreign language students (he has a CELTA qualification from International House, London). In 2008 he trained with the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution and is a CEDR-accredited Mediator.
Robert is based in London and can be contacted using our contact form.
Yvette is an experienced commercial and contracts lawyer, who also runs her own legal practice, HJ Legal. Prior to setting up, HJ Legal, she worked as an in-house lawyer and ran her own consultancy. She qualified as a solicitor in 1992.
Yvette worked as an in-house lawyer for various U.S. multinationals and UK organizations including the National Rivers Authority (now Environment Agency), Foster Wheeler, Halliburton and URS Corporation. These organizations operate in the environmental, oil and gas, engineering and construction sectors. Yvette headed up the European legal function of URS Corporation. She has also worked in the public sector. She now works with businesses operating in various sectors. Yvette's practical approach helps clients to effectively manage their legal affairs, so they can focus on achieving their business objectives and minimize risk. Yvette has worked on a wide range of UK and international business matters. Her experience encompasses commercial contracts, engineering and construction projects, oil and gas projects, joint ventures, alliances, IT projects and services, advertising and marketing, e-commerce, intellectual property, procurement, risk management, and compliance matters.
She has also developed and delivered training on contracts, general commercial law, risk management, governance and legal issues for entrepreneurs and start ups. Yvette is experienced in training non-lawyers on understanding legal issues which affect business including the practical steps to avoid legal pitfalls.
She is also the author of "Business Agreements Made Easy", a practical guide for small businesses to commercial and legal issues in relation to business agreements.
Yvette is based in Kingston-Upon-Thames and can be contacted using our contact form.
Inder worked as an engineer for several years before qualifying as a solicitor, joining British Telecom in 1995. He subsequently worked for blue chip companies in the automotive and banking sectors. He has also worked in IT and telecoms consulting, and for a contract research organisation in the pharma sector.
Inder holds a Masters degree in Business Law and has extensive experience in a wide range of areas including employment, major IT projects, software licensing, data protection, competition law, IP, advertising, and franchising. His commercial awareness and inter-personal skills have enabled him to be a trusted adviser to senior management teams where he successfully bridges the gap between the law and the business needs of his clients.
Inder is based in Hertfordshire and can be contacted using our contact form.
In addition to heading our coaching and development arm, Kareen Cranston is an experienced board level solicitor. Prior to joining The Legal Director she spent 13 years working in the financial services sector as General Counsel and Company Secretary to some well known international organisations, including Canada Life, Ford Credit, BNP Paribas and Allianz Cornhill.
She has experience in the drafting and negotiation of strategic contracts, the purchase of external legal tax and audit services, the provision of employment law advice, approval of financial promotions and advertising copy etc. She also has experience working alongside external regulators such as the Financial Services Authority, the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission. On the team management side she has managed local solicitors and those in off shore offices. With all of this experience she is well placed to advise businesses on their legal affairs at the highest level.
Kareen is based in St Albans and works with clients in the South East of England and other parts of the UK. She can be contacted using our contact form.
Amanda is an experienced and effective lawyer and company secretary with a broad range of practical commercial experience and a pragmatic business focused approach to giving legal advice. Amanda qualified as a Solicitor in 1994 at Denton Hall (now SNR Denton). She then pursued a career in-house for a number of large brand names in Consumer Electronics (Sony UK), Public Relations (NextFifteen Communications) and Luxury Retail (De Beers Diamond Jewellers). These companies included both privately owned and listed companies with UK and extensive international operations including Continental Europe, the US and the Middle East.
Amanda brings her General Counsel experience and specialist knowledge of starting up in house legal functions to our clients. She advises on all areas of business law in the UK and abroad including company secretarial (having been Company Secretary of a company on its move from Ofex to being listed the London Stock Exchange), confidentiality agreements, terms and conditions of business, manufacturer and supply agreements, website set up, employment matters, commercial agreements, intellectual property protection and licensing, data protection, shareholder/partnership agreements, distribution, agency and franchise terms, consumer and advertising and promotions law.
Amanda is based in Reading and advises clients in London and the South East. She can be contacted using our contact form.
Deborah spent her first five years as a lawyer doing family and criminal work at the Bar. Armed with a Masters in European Business Law she took an in-house legal director's role and has been supporting businesses as an in house counsel for over fifteen years. Working for such companies as CSC Computer Sciences, Citigroup, the BBC and Standard and Poor's Deborah amassed a wealth of cross border legal experience.
She has particular legal expertise in IT, e commerce, trading platforms, IP licensing and distribution, large scale outsourcing and financial services contracts. She has headed up and managed teams within both a legal function and providing services to customers. The latter having provided invaluable insight into how lawyers can actively support rather than prevent business development. She has also designed and conducted a number of audits to identify cost savings and efficiencies in areas such as external legal spend, IT, telco and market data licensing. Along with working for multinationals she has been involved with a fair few small and midsized companies dealing with everything from employment, sales and marketing, listings, disposals and acquisitions, sponsorship, data protection through to managing external lawyers in litigation. Deborah is also an accredited mediator and a member of the Civil Mediation Council.
Deborah is based in Essex, but advises clients both within the UK and abroad. She can be contacted using our contact form.
Paula and Niamh are responsible for Marketing and Communications at The Legal Director.They focus on communicating TLD's message and interfacing with clients and businesses which need help to understand how best to manage their legal affairs and how to use TLD's service.
Paula is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Personnel and Development and along with her Human Resources capability is experiencedin Marketing, Business Development, Project Management, Customer Relationship Management databases, logistics and general office organisation.
Her commercial knowledge has been developed through work in the financial services, telecommunications and construction sectors.
Niamh has a degree in Business Studies and a background in running prestigious catering establishments in the City of London. In these roles she has been responsible for driving sales, increasing profits, managing large teams, handling supplier relationships, and has turned around under- performing ventures. In her most recent full time role she was Client Services Manager at a global software company where she managed the company's Partner relationships.
She developed new partner revenue streams and was also involved in negotiating contracts with software vendors and banks. In addition to these responsibilities she managed the commercial relationship with London Irish and co-ordinated their events.
Paula and Niamh work alongside the Directors and Lawyers at The Legal Director and are always available to deal with enquiries you may have about TLD's service.
They are very approachable and are not lawyers!
We have seen how businesses tend to operate when it comes to their legal affairs: They often try and handle legal issues themselves or avoid legal issues altogether in an attempt to save costs until things get to the point where they consider they have "no choice" but to pick up the phone to a firm of solicitors. This is not always the best way to handle your legal affairs.
All businesses have legal issues and yours is no exception. In fact, your legal affairs are your business. They cover all of your key relationships - with your clients, your suppliers, your employees, your joint venture partners, your shareholders, your regulators and other third parties. If you are not looking after these relationships you are not looking after your business and eventually it will suffer.
Your legal affairs need to be controlled in two phases:
Phase 1 - Understand your legal affairs and organise them.
Phase 2 - Take action to resolve your legal issues and use the appropriate legal resource for this.
The Legal Director offers the best solution for Phase 1, which involves assessing your legal affairs across the board - you will need an in-house lawyer to do this. Phase 2 may involve dealing with your legal issues internally, which we can do for you, or using a specialist solicitor which we can appoint and manage for you.
Solicitors firms are set up to provide businesses with specialist legal advice delivered by solicitors who are expert in particular areas of practice. They are invariably good at what they do, i.e. providing advice on one area of the law, but they can be expensive. You should only use them when the time is right and in a way that enables you to manage their fees.
In our view all growing businesses should give more attention to their legal affairs and the impact that legal issues have on their business. You can start by addressing your legal affairs in the two phased approach referred to above. This is how leading companies address their legal affairs and it should work well for your business too. In essence, you need an in-house lawyer and The Legal Director will provide this for you.
We can provide an experienced business lawyer to work as part of your management team. We provide timely, commercial advice to allow you to concentrate on your core business. We work with you for an agreed number of days per month, which means that you know what your legal costs will be each month while giving you the flexibility to meet the changing needs of your business.
Whether your business is in the early stages of its development or is established enough to be considering employing its own lawyer on a full time basis, we guarantee that The Legal Director can provide a flexible and pragmatic way to handle your company's legal affairs, provide solutions to your problems and help you to control risk and make your business a success.
If you run an in-house legal team for your business, you will know that getting the balance right between managing your legal workload through your team and sending work out to external law firms is not easy.
We know that legal departments invariably face surges in workload and can quickly become overstretched. At the same time you are expected to operate subject to cost and headcount restraints.
When your team is under pressure you should contact us. All of our lawyers are ex in-house counsel and fully understand the in-house counsel role. Many businesses turn to their external law firms in these circumstances but end up incurring large legal bills or using a seconded solicitor when an extra in-house lawyer would be a better option.
The Legal Director specialises in and only provides in-house lawyer services to businesses. This business model is unique in the UK - you should use us.
We can assist you by offering the following support:
You can call us when you need us and we will work with you on any project for as long as required. See the 'What we charge' section of our website to find out how much it will cost you to use us. We will provide you with a senior in-house lawyer who can hit the ground running at a cost you can afford with the flexibility you want.
If you are ready to commit to taking control of your legal affairs you need to start from the beginning. This means looking at every key relationship that your business has put in place. These relationships will include those with your customers, suppliers, employees, investors, shareholders, regulators and other companies, organisations and individuals. These relationships make up your business.
As experienced in house lawyers we know that the first thing a new in house lawyer does when he joins a company is to carry out such a review. The knowledge and understanding that is gained from undertaking this exercise is invaluable and creates the foundations for the organisation of your legal affairs and the success of your business.
Our Legal Audit involves carrying out this exercise for your business. We spend time with your key people, and reviewing your documentation and then prepare a report summarizing your legal affairs and itemizing what your business needs to do to get them into order.
We will provide you with an information request form in advance so that our time is used efficiently from the start. We will also provide you with a signed NDA (confidentiality and non disclosure agreement) to give you peace of mind regarding the disclosure of your valuable and confidential information to us.
The Legal Audit can be used
(1) as a 'one off' exercise to bring you up to speed with your legal affairs and what they look like, or
(2) as a platform to introduce our part time legal director service to your business.
We offer the following legal audits:
The fees we charge for our Legal Audit are set out in the Rates and Fees section of this website. If you are interested in this service contact us and we will visit you in person to explain the process and benefits.
We have developed a simple and robust contracting process for our clients. It involves putting in place a system
(1) to evaluate existing commercial arrangements and determine the extent to which work is required to get them into shape and
(2) to ensure that all future commercial arrangements are properly documented, involving the right people at the right time.
Our contracting process is usually adopted as part of our legal director service or it can be purchased as a 'one off' item if you decide that you want to start organizing your legal affairs but are not yet ready to use our core service.
The process is easy to understand and implement, however, you will need to get buy in from your key people and the process will need to be administered on a day to day basis so that your business does not fall back into old habits.
Once our contracting process becomes part of your company policy you will notice the difference. There will be no more lost contracts or undocumented arrangements and your key people will always be aware of the status of your important commercial relationships.
The fees we charge for our Contracting Solution are set out in the Rates and Fees section of this website.
If you are a high net worth individual with an interest or involvement in many businesses how do you manage those interests and make sure that the arrangements you enter into achieve your personal objectives but at the same time sufficiently protect you?
In the same way that we handle the legal affairs of our corporate clients we can advise you on your portfolio of interests making sure that you are sufficiently aware of the commitments you are making, the obligations you are taking on and the rights you are entitled to.
The businesses you are involved in will all take legal advice but in most cases this advice is aimed at protecting the businesses themselves and not your interests.
When advising companies we invariably work closely with the Chief Executive or Finance Director acting in many cases as legal director to the business but also 'trusted adviser' to the individuals concerned.
This expertise acts as a perfect foundation for our One to One General Counsel service.
We will work with you on a retained basis providing you with two dedicated days per month and your appointed lawyer will always be available on the telephone and by email to give you the legal/commercial advisory support you need to help you run your business life more effectively. For this we will charge you a fixed monthly fee.
If you decide that you would prefer to recruit a full time lawyer as an alternative to using our legal director service or if it becomes clear that you need to move from our usual service to a full time resource we will undertake your recruitment project. Whether your business is looking to recruit a full time lawyer for the first time, you are looking to recruit an additional lawyer for your legal team or you need to replace one of your in-house lawyers who is leaving, we can help.
The legal recruitment market is full of recruitment organisations which place lawyers in in-house legal roles, however none of them can claim to be involved in delivering in-house legal services themselves.
We are made up of in-house lawyers who fully understand the in-house legal role because we have acted as in-house counsel throughout our legal careers and continue to fulfil the same role for our existing corporate clients. We can therefore offer something that no legal recruitment organisation can.
We will undertake your recruitment assignment by first of all agreeing the proposition, method, timescales and costs. We will prepare and agree a comprehensive assignment brief and appointment specification. We will interview every shortlisted candidate thoroughly before putting them forward to you and will attend your interviews where requested. We will provide Psychometric testing on shortlisted candidates and will take thorough candidate references on your behalf. We charge a fixed fee of 25% of the first year's basic salary.
With experience of operating as in-house lawyers for many clients over a number of years we have developed a very strong sense of what businesses are looking for from the specialist solicitors that they use. The fact that we regularly purchase and use legal services provided by law firms for most of our clients gives us an inside perspective of what law firms need to do to impress their clients and win more business.
We are also aware of the pressures that exist on solicitors in private practice not only to market their practice but also to maintain high levels of billing. The performance of this dual role often results in either marketing or billing suffering.
We have strong views about how law firms and individual solicitors project themselves and believe that there is scope to improve in these areas. We can bring our perspective to your law firm and improve your business development capability.
We can offer your firm coaching expertise to work effectively with your individual solicitors at all levels or teams within your firm. Coaching can be used to enhance your lawyer's personal development and client facing skills, alternatively to improve business development with coaching from the buyers' perspective.
Kareen Cranston spearheads our coaching and development arm. She is accredited by the Association for Coaching as a coach and is qualified by the British Psychological Society in the use of psychometric instruments, including Myers Briggs Type Indicator. She is an experienced board level solicitor and prior to training as a coach she spent 13 years working in the financial services sector in organisations such as Canada Life, Ford Credit, BNP Paribas and Allianz Cornhill.
Through her commercial experience she has seen what it takes first hand to be a good leader and is used to working in organisations focused on performance productivity and change. With this experience she is well placed to advise law firms on business development strategy and offer personal development coaching.
We recommend and introduce individual solicitors and law firms to the businesses that we advise. We understand the value that good specialist solicitors can add and regularly instruct them on behalf of our clients. If you are prepared to introduce us to your network we will introduce your law firm to our clients. The role that we fulfill for our clients generates legal business.
We believe in the dual approach of promoting The Legal Director to work internally with clients and complimenting this with specialist law firm support where required. If you are interested in joining with us to make joint pitches to prospective clients get in touch.
Our structure means we can be flexible when it comes to our charges and how we work with you. We prefer to work on a retainer basis rather than use hourly rates.
£1,000 - £1,500 + VAT per day
Ranging from £175 - £250 + VAT
(if you use our retainer arrangement you effectively reduce the hourly rates you pay to between £125 - £187.50 + VAT)
Short Audit - £2500 + VAT
Standard Audit - £5000 + VAT
Premium Audit - Subject to agreement
We charge £1200 + VAT to provide you with a copy of our Contracting Solution documentation.
If you choose the retainer option there is no long term commitment - you can terminate it by giving us one month's notice.
Where in the range of fees you will be charged depends upon the nature of the work, the number of days per month you want to instruct us for, whether you are committing to a fixed term arrangement and the lawyer who does the work. Charging arrangements will be agreed with you in advance and will be set out in our engagement letter.
Out of pocket expenses are invoiced at cost, with travel by car charged at 45p/mile. Generally we do not charge for our time travelling to/from your offices, the costs of telephone calls made on your behalf from our office landline, fax transmissions or copying/printing undertaken at our offices.
Fees and expenses are billed monthly.
We offer a guarantee if you like what you hear and want to try our service, we will arrange to spend a half day or one day at your offices to advise you on a 'one off' legal problem or to carry out a quick review of your legal affairs. We will charge you our normal day rate for this service (£1,500) but will make no charge if, at the end of the day, you are not satisfied with the service we have given you.
Our clients range from large multinational businesses and household names to medium-sized and smaller niche businesses. We tend to work with main board directors and senior management and become part of the decision making process at our clients.
We play an important internal role at our clients. Our experience of working with a range of other businesses means that we can provide added value that permanent in-house lawyers cannot give. We have listed some of our clients to give you an idea of the calibre and range of businesses that we work with.
"Kirstie Penk and the network that is the Legal Director has proven to be an ideal solution for a growing business such as Burgess Pet Care. Kirstie has delivered work on a rapid turnaround and is prepared to operate flexible hours to meet ours and our customers' needs. She has undertaken a full legal audit of the business and with the knowledge of how we operate has worked with us to set the priorities, whilst still meeting our budget constraints."
Paul Miley - Managing Director, Burgess Pet Care
"I cannot speak too highly of Ed's advice and work. He was of immense help to our Board and company in a set of particularly trying and delicate circumstances. I relied on his guidance many times and found it thoroughly considered and entirely to the point. I will seek his advice again as and when opportunity presents itself."
Andrew Seth - Chairman, Brand Intellect
"John's input has been invaluable in helping us to transform from an NHS arms length trading organisation, into an independent Community Interest Company operating to the standards of a well run private sector organisation. The Legal Director's role as our acting legal director, working as an integral part of our senior management team, has strengthened our organisation."
John Niland - CEO, Central Essex Community Services
"John provides us with legal experience and insight, which otherwise we would only benefit from, if we were to employ a full time legal director. Being able to utilise his expertise on a flexible basis for a number of days per month has really worked for us."
Tim Johnson - COO, Regester Larkin Limited
"The Legal Director provides invaluable support to me in my role as CFO. We utilise John's broader commercial acumen as well as his legal knowledge and skills to help us manage our legal affairs and to take the right key commercial decisions."
Anthony Clayden - CFO, Special Products Limited
"The Legal Director stepped in to manage our legal affairs as an alternative to us continuing to use our specialist solicitors on day to day legal matters. Not only are our legal affairs now in better shape, we now use our specialist solicitors more efficiently only when we really need to use them."
Gavan Stewart - CEO, Touchdown Marketing and Touchdown Prepaid Limited
"We established a long and productive relationship with John Burchill and The Legal Director over a 5 year period. When we started working with The Legal Director we had a store portfolio of less than 200 stores and we now have in excess of 600 stores. The Legal Director provided us with the legal support necessary to help us achieve our growth targets and put in place systems to manage our areas of risk. The flexibility and value for money The Legal Director can provide is difficult to match. We would recommend The Legal Director to any business looking for an alternative, highly professional legal services solution."
Stephen Hemsley - Chairman, Domino's Pizza UK & IRL plc
"Over the past 18 months Ed has helped our senior executive team guide Tribal through a period of great change and significant corporate activity and in doing so has become a trusted advisor to the board. He has also helped us to reshape our internal legal team to fit our new business model. I greatly value his wise counsel."
Steve Breach - Group Finance Director, Tribal Group plc
"Ed has been involved with Green Rewards from the start. He has dealt with our legal requirements efficiently and in a most cost effective manner and been a constant source of wise advice when dealing with difficult situations. I am delighted that he has now joined our board."
Graham Simmonds - Managing Director, Green Rewards
The Legal Director has close links and works with a number of great businesses whose services we highly recommend. We list some of these below.
The legal services model that we use is new in the UK, however, Outside GC uses the same model in the United States. We have a strong relationship with them, providing their US clients with UK legal support and referring our UK clients (which operate in the US) to them for US legal advice.
Outside GC provides on-demand general counsel services to their clients, handling day-to-day transactions (customer contracts, license agreements, financings, HR matters, etc.) at a fraction of the cost of traditional legal counsel. Their sister firm, Patent GC, provides patent, trademark and copyright legal services, acting as in-house IP counsel, or project-based IP counsel, as needed.
The lawyers in our network are self-employed and contracted to us. They lead a fascinating and varied work life, working for a range of different businesses on a basis, which suits them and the clients they work with. Working with us can be extremely rewarding both professionally and financially but you need to be highly committed if you are considering moving from an employed in-house role into one of our lawyer roles.
It may be that you can make the move from an employed in-house role to The Legal Director through offering your employer the opportunity to use your services in a different way - by outsourcing your role to you at The Legal Director. This can be a useful springboard to help you to make the move.
If you are interested in working with us you must be a solicitor or barrister with previous experience of working as an in-house lawyer although we may give consideration to exceptional candidates who are interested in our model and want to bring their extensive legal experience to part time legal director roles for our clients. You should also be looking to develop a career with us rather than looking for a stop gap or an opportunity to participate on a limited basis only.
You must understand the importance of communications and building relationships with the business people you work with and must have a pragmatic and commercial approach to delivering legal advice.
You should be interested in business development and be prepared to help us develop our client portfolio. You should also be prepared to move into a role, which for an initial period will involve building up your portfolio. We may be in a position to place you in one of our client roles from day 1 but this is not guaranteed and you will need to join us with the objective of developing a client portfolio through working with us on business development.
We ask suitable applicants to meet us at our offices in London. Lawyers who have the requisite experience and skills and who would like to receive more information about The Legal Director should send their c.v. to
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