The General Counsel your company needs.
Without the nine‑month search.

A fractional General Counsel is a senior commercial lawyer who performs the role of an in-house GC for multiple companies on a part-time, retainer basis. Unlike an external law firm, a fractional GC is embedded in the business — attending leadership meetings, owning the contract stack, managing external counsel, and briefing the board on risk. Unlike a full-time hire, a fractional GC costs a fraction of a full GC salary and can start in weeks rather than months.

Fractional General Counsel services are most valuable for companies that have outgrown templates and external-only counsel, but do not yet need — or cannot yet afford — a full-time hire. In practice, this is most European B2B scale-ups from Series B through Series D.

At Series B, the contracts get bigger. The jurisdictions multiply. The deals that stall in legal review start costing you quarters.

You know what you need: a General Counsel. Someone senior enough to own the commercial stack, make the calls, manage external counsel across Europe, and speak to your board about risk without hiding behind hedges.

So you start the search. And the market gives you three bad options.

When the legal function is under-levelled, the damage isn't in the legal budget. It's everywhere else.

• Commercial deals slow because the in-house lawyer hasn't negotiated at this level before.
• Risk gets missed — indemnity caps, IP carve-outs, change-of-control, data transfer mechanics — because no one's seen them play out.
• Founders and COOs end up reviewing MSAs at 11pm, doing work that isn't theirs and isn't good.
• External counsel spend creeps, because no one senior is managing the brief or challenging scope.
• The moments that actually matter — a funding round, a new market, an acquisition, a dispute — expose the gap at the worst possible time.

You don't need more legal hours. You need better legal judgement.

PivotGC plugs into your leadership team two or three days a week and runs your legal function the way an experienced General Counsel would.

• Contract stack, owned. Customer agreements, partner contracts, vendor terms, employment — templates, negotiation, and closure.
• Commercial deals, led or supported. Depending on stage, counterparty, and your team.
• Legal operations, built. Playbooks, approval thresholds, obligation tracking, tooling.
• External counsel, managed. Instructed, scoped, challenged on fees, translated into commercial terms.
• Leadership and board, briefed. Risk explained in the language of the business.

One relationship. One invoice. One point of accountability across your European footprint.

• Series B to Series D, or €10–100M in revenue
• Operating across at least two European jurisdictions — commonly United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany
• Without a full-time General Counsel, or bridging between hires
• In SaaS, fintech, industrial technology, marketplaces, or healthtech

If you're not in this profile, we'll say so in the first call and point you elsewhere.

No commercial lawyer is admitted in every European jurisdiction, and anyone who claims otherwise isn't being straight. Every PivotGC General Counsel holds top academic credentials, is admitted in their home jurisdiction, and has practised across at least three European countries. Each brings 5+ years advising C-level executives on material commercial matters. Across other jurisdictions, we operate as in-house counsel for our clients and instruct trusted specialists from a curated network when locally admitted advice is needed — but we manage the relationship, control the scope, and translate the advice into commercial terms. You deal with one person, not five.

See how we cover Europe →