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CurrentLess than ten percent of UK growth-stage start-ups have a senior lawyer working in their company, and even fewer seed-stage companies, less than two percent, have a senior lawyer in their management team (source: https://www.beauhurst.com/blog/startups-hiring-lawyers/).This is in stark contrast to the USA, where a senior lawyer is typically a must-have for any ambitious startup, even more so for scale-ups and high-growth companies.While hiring senior legal resources is often not a priority for UK founders compared to marketing headcount and developers, not having senior legal resource in place from the outset, particularly in regulated businesses, can lead to the sort of issues recently faced by some of the UK's biggest fintechs. The right early-stage legal input can help set up your business for long-term success and to avoid regulatory or consumer censure.Having an in-house General Counsel (GC) in the C Suite not only prevents avoidable mistakes but can also be a critical factor in your company's survival and growth trajectory. Beauhurst’s analysis, based on data from over 35,000 UK high-growth companies shows that those with a senior lawyer in their management team enjoy significantly higher turnover than those without this support. The data proves that appointing a senior legal resource can add significant value to a company. A commercially aware pragmatic GC can speed up the process of agreeing commercial contracts with suppliers and customers, as well as assisting with procurement, supplier onboarding processes and compliance. The right GC can fill in all sorts of gaps in your team and add significant value in areas such as finance, HR, property, IP and data protection. This is where Fractional GC comes in. Fractional GC specialises in providing flexible, scalable GC services to entrepreneurial businesses and their founders. Like a full-time GC, Fractional GC's service covers the full range of legal, transactional, and commercial advice.
