Frequently asked questions
To discover whether TLD can help your business, call us on 020 3056 8538 or email: info@thelegaldirector.co.uk
We speak with different businesses every day and hear people grappling with similar issues or labouring under certain misconceptions about what a General Counsel does.
So, we thought it would be useful to collate this information, answer your questions and address some of the concerns that you may have.
Resourcing dilemmas
Many of our clients have been in a similar position. Though managing your own legal affairs is doable when you’re relatively small, it can be very time consuming and distracting from your core work. As the business grows, so do the legal risks and the potential for damage. Now is a good time to consider working with a lawyer!
We offer a ‘Your Legal Blueprint’ report to give you clarity on your business’s legal requirements and how best to resource them given your size, complexity, sector and appetite for risk. This may be to hire a lawyer, use external support or even train your staff to become more self-sufficient so you don’t need a lawyer at all. Alternatively, we may think that our part-time support would suit you best.
Whatever the conclusion, we can give you an effective bridge whilst you are considering your options by providing one of our highly experienced in-house lawyers to work with you on a flexible part-time basis.
This an exciting time which will create new business opportunities. It is also a time when you will need to plan for how to integrate the new company post transaction and we have a lot of experience in doing this.
Among other considerations, you will need to think about:
- How to handle TUPE requirements such as employee contracts, salaries, benefits and pay grades;
- GDPR compliance;
- Reviewing your standard commercial contracts; and
- How to handle existing commercial contracts.
From our team of highly experienced in-house lawyers, we can recommend those who have particular expertise in this area. Working on a retained, part-time basis, our lawyer can be embedded into your business for 2-6 days/month. This is a flexible arrangement meaning you can use the hours to access your lawyer whenever needed during the month.
We also have considerable experience supporting businesses to prepare for sale. So, if you are in this position, we can help pull together or review a data room to ensure you get the best price possible for your business.
Employing your own in-house lawyer will really help you understand and minimise your legal risks to give you the business protection that you need. The appointment will be a very important decision. And yes, getting the right person can be a lengthy process as you will want to satisfy yourself that they have the right experience and fit for your business. This can be very daunting if you have never recruited for this role before.
- We can help define the job specification for your new lawyer. One of our Client Legal Directors can conduct a ‘Your Legal Blueprint’ report to determine what legal work your business should be addressing, what should be handled internally and what outsourced and therefore what experience and expertise your ideal candidate should have.
- We can support you by providing effective cover until that appointment has been made and even offer coaching/training support by way of hand over when your new lawyer joins the company. We have a team of highly experienced in-house lawyers who can provide legal advice on a retained, part-time basis.
- All our team have at least 10 years in-house experience and operate at General Counsel level. This means they can provide proactive business-savvy advice on a diverse range of legal matters. They can be embedded into your organisation and “white-labelled” with your company email address to give you the presence that you need with your customers and suppliers until you recruit your own lawyer.
We understand that it can be difficult to predict when you will need to consult legal services and have three services that can help you:
- Legal Audit
We can perform a “health check” to examine the legal condition of your business as it relates to your policies, agreements, filings and employment matters. This report will help you to identify whether action is required and if so, how business critical the issues are. - Your Legal Blueprint
This report will give you clarity on what your business’s legal needs are and how best to resource them given your size, complexity, sector and appetite for risk. Your Legal Blueprint will give the guidance you need to work out how best to resource your legal needs in a way that’s a perfect fit for your growing business. - 3-month trial
Our team of highly experienced in-house lawyers work on a retained, part-time basis. Our lawyer can be embedded into your business 2 days/month for 3 months for a fixed monthly cost. This is a flexible arrangement which means that you can use the hours to access your lawyer whenever needed during this period. This will help you to assess what level of support you need for your business on an ongoing basis after the trial has ended whilst getting your legal issues proactively handled in the meantime.
If you choose options 1 or 2 above and you also need support with your legal workload, our Client Legal Directors can help with that alongside delivering the Legal Audit or Your Legal Blueprint.
Financial concerns
Many of our clients are not yet at the stage where they have their own in-house lawyer and so have to consult external law firms. We understand that this can sometimes be a costly process.
If this is the case with you, we will almost certainly help you to save costs and still provide you with a highly experienced in-house lawyer with our retained service. Our lawyer can be embedded into your business for 2-6 days/month. This is a flexible arrangement which means that you can use the hours to access your lawyer whenever needed during this period.
We understand that this way of working may be new to you, and you may not even know how much time you will need. This is why we offer a trial over 3/6 months with a fixed monthly cost, and you can take advantage of the discounts we apply as you commit to more days.
Getting the Board on board
We understand the board’s need to be satisfied that your legal risks will be well managed, financially affordable and that you will be getting good value for money.
From our team of highly experienced in-house lawyers, we can recommend three from the team who have worked in your industry and have particular expertise aligned with your business needs. We invite you to choose your preferred lawyer and meet with them at no cost before you make any commitment. In this way you can assure yourself that you have the right fit for your organisation and business needs.
We also understand that this way of working may be new to you and you may not even know how much time you will need. This is why we offer a trial over 3/6 months with a fixed monthly cost allowing you to take advantage of the discounts we apply as you commit to more days.
We have a standard TLD slide deck with all the information about our unique service that we would be happy to talk you through and can prepare something clear and straightforward for you to present to the board to show you have done your research and can demonstrate that a TLD Client Legal Director can meet all your business’s legal needs.
We are happy to attend the board meeting and present this ourselves or prepare something for you to deliver.
Covering busy times
We can certainly help.
We have a team of highly experienced in-house lawyers who work on a retained, part-time basis. Our lawyer can be embedded into your business for 2-6 days/month to cover busy periods. This is a flexible arrangement which means that you can use the hours to access your lawyer whenever needed during this period. There is a very short turnaround on providing our service so you can quickly access the support you need to cover busy times or for discrete project work.
The seniority of our Client Legal Directors means that they are adept at immediately getting to grips with the work required. They are accustomed to parachuting in and are happy dealing with all stakeholders in the business from the board down. This means we really do take the workload from your in-house lawyer and are not just another external resource for them to manage and supervise.
We invite you to meet with your choice of lawyer from those we recommend who have worked in your industry and have particular expertise aligned with your business needs. There is no cost to this as we know how important it will be to assure yourself that you have the right fit for your organisation and business needs.
This means that we can offer you a single point of contact who understands your business and will be available when needed.
Aren't all lawyers the same?
Our team of in-house lawyers have at least 10 years in-house experience and operate at General Counsel level. This means they can handle a diverse range of legal matters proficiently. They will not need for their work to be approved by a more senior lawyer and can confidently and promptly turn work around.
The experience that our lawyers have make them more efficient than a junior resource and more adept at prioritising what is important. One of our clients had previously engaged a junior lawyer for 2.5 days a week (10 days a month) and our Client Legal Director was able to cover the work in just 5 days a month.
If the junior lawyer who manages your legal work is an in-house resource, our experienced team members can act as a mentor and give support, as being the sole lawyer in a business can be a very lonely place. We appreciate how much your business has invested in this individual and we can help support and develop them as a proactive lawyer, keeping them in the business and making sure that they can step up to provide the business with the strategic level advice you will need as your business grows.
Our team of in-house lawyers are not constrained by working within a law firm. They are used to being on the sharp end of the business and will always give legal advice from a business perspective. As General Counsel they are used to not having the luxury of sitting on the fence or handing over wordy documents with questions for you to answer and advice for you to deliberate on. They provide pragmatic, commercial legal advice to give your business the direction it needs.
Our lawyers have at least 10 years in-house experience and operate at GC level. This means they can handle a diverse range of legal matters personally and proficiently meaning you will not have to consult with a range of firms for specialist advice and you’ll have a single point of contact for all your legal needs.
When working with an external firm, you approach them when you want some legal work done. A Client Legal Director is embedded in your business, and proactively manages all your legal work. Adopting a systematic approach that addresses every aspect of your business, they ensure that the structure of your business, its policies, contracts and procedures support your aims and ambitions. They adopt a best practice, not reactive, approach to your legal work.
The chances are this could be done more cheaply than with your current resource too.
It is great that you have this resource, and it keeps your costs down too!
However, there is no substitute for dedicated UK support, particularly as EU legislation will be obsolete post Brexit by the end of the year.
We are a regulated UK law firm and have a team of highly experienced in-house lawyers who provide legal advice on a part-time basis. This is a flexible arrangement which means that you can use the hours to access your lawyer whenever needed during the retained period.
Our lawyers are adept at horizon scanning and keeping on top of ever-changing legislation impacting UK businesses. They also have a lot of experience working with international businesses so can support you effectively in the context of a global business.
