General Counsel
What Is an Outside General Counsel?
Written and reviewed by Andrew R. Schneidman, Esq. · Last reviewed
An outside general counsel is an attorney who serves as a company's lead business lawyer on an ongoing engagement rather than as a full-time employee. The business gets the judgment, availability, and institutional knowledge of a general counsel without adding an executive position to payroll.
At Schneidman Law, outside general counsel runs on a flat monthly fee. There is no hourly billing, no surprise invoices, and hours are never counted at any level. Andrew R. Schneidman brings over 12 years of transactional practice, including time as general counsel of a large construction and real estate development company, to businesses in Middle Tennessee and nationwide.
How does outside general counsel work?
Outside general counsel works through a continuous relationship. The attorney learns the business first, then handles contracts, employment questions, vendor relationships, and strategic decisions as they arise. The owner calls one lawyer who already knows the company instead of hiring counsel matter by matter.
The engagement starts with the attorney getting inside the business: how it makes money, who its key customers and vendors are, what agreements govern its relationships, and where its risks sit. That groundwork means the third or fourth question you ask gets answered faster and better than the first, because the context is already built.
From there the relationship runs like an in-house legal department scaled to your size. Contracts come in, get reviewed and marked up, and go back with plain-English notes. Employment questions get answered before the offer letter goes out. Deals get structured before the handshake. This is the core of our outside general counsel practice.
Andrew’s take
Think of your general counsel the way you think of a primary care physician. They know your baseline, you see them for regular check-ins, and they are the first call when something comes up. Every business should have one.
What does outside general counsel cover?
Outside general counsel covers the legal work a growing business generates day to day: contract drafting, review, and markup, business and legal strategy, employment issues, vendor relationships, partnership matters, and risk assessment before the company commits to anything significant.
The scope tracks the life of the business rather than a single matter. The following are the 6 areas outside general counsel covers at Schneidman Law.
- Contracts: drafting, review, and markup of the agreements the business signs and sends
- Business and legal strategy: structuring decisions before they become commitments
- Employment issues: offers, policies, classifications, and separations
- Vendor relationships: negotiating and managing the terms behind key suppliers
- Partnerships: ownership arrangements, buy-ins, and exits among principals
- Risk: identifying exposure early, while it still costs little to fix
Who is outside general counsel for?
Outside general counsel fits founders running businesses between roughly $1 million and $20 million in revenue that have real legal needs but no in-house counsel. At that size the company generates steady legal work without generating enough to justify a full-time attorney.
Below that range, legal needs tend to arrive as isolated projects. Above it, companies start hiring their first in-house lawyer. In between sits a long stretch, usually 5 to 15 years of a company's life, where the business signs 3 to 5 significant contracts a month, manages a growing team, and makes decisions with real legal weight, all without a lawyer in the building.
That is the gap outside general counsel fills. The owner stops guessing at contract language, stops signing whatever the other side sends, and stops treating legal review as a luxury reserved for emergencies.
How is outside general counsel priced at Schneidman Law?
Schneidman Law prices outside general counsel as a flat-fee monthly subscription. There is no hourly billing and no surprise invoice. Hours are never counted at any tier, so calling your lawyer never generates a charge.
Flat pricing changes how clients use counsel. When every call starts a meter, owners ration their questions and problems surface late. When the fee is fixed, owners call early, and early questions are where legal problems get prevented instead of managed. That logic is the foundation of why we don't bill by the hour.
What are the three levels of outside general counsel?
Schneidman Law offers three levels of outside general counsel, separated by depth of involvement: Level I Outside Counsel for occasional needs, Level II Ongoing Counsel for a continuous relationship, and Level III Strategic Counsel for executive-level, custom-scoped engagement.
The following are the 3 levels and what each one covers.
- Level I Outside Counsel: occasional needs, contract review and markup, and discrete legal questions
- Level II Ongoing Counsel: the default engagement, with a continuous relationship, document drafting, live counsel calls, priority responsiveness, and involvement before the business makes commitments
- Level III Strategic Counsel: custom-scoped and custom-priced, with the attorney embedded at the executive level
Frequently asked questions
Is an outside general counsel an employee of the business?+
No. An outside general counsel is an independent attorney engaged by the business, not an employee on payroll. The business gets general counsel judgment and availability without a salary, benefits, or office overhead, and the relationship scales up or down as the company's needs change.
How responsive is outside general counsel when something urgent comes up?+
Responsiveness scales with the engagement level. Level II Ongoing Counsel, the default, includes priority responsiveness and live counsel calls, and the attorney is involved before the business makes commitments. Because hours are never counted, clients reach out the moment a question appears rather than waiting.
Keep reading
Questions about your own situation?
This is the day-to-day work of the firm's Outside General Counsel practice. The next step is a short, direct conversation.