Entering Europe?
Don't make a law firm your first legal hire.

Companies expanding into Europe usually discover the same things, in the same order, at the worst possible moments. Europe is a patchwork of legal regimes — EU regulation layered over national law, plus the UK, Switzerland, and Norway sitting outside the EU framework entirely. What worked at home quietly stops working:

• At-will employment doesn't exist here. Every European jurisdiction requires written terms, notice periods, and cause for termination. In Germany and the Netherlands, works councils and mandatory consultation add a second layer. Getting a first hire's contract wrong is expensive; getting a first termination wrong is much more so.
• Your MSA won't survive contact with a European enterprise buyer. Unlimited liability language, one-sided indemnities, and US-style arbitration clauses trigger long procurement fights. European deals close faster on European paper.
• GDPR is a commercial issue, not a compliance checkbox. Your European customers will not sign without a defensible DPA, transfer mechanics (SCCs, transfer impact assessments), and straight answers about US government access to data. This is now the first objection in many European enterprise sales cycles — and it lands on legal.
• Non-competes, IP assignment, and contractor rules differ by country. The protections your equity plan and employment templates assume may be unenforceable — or unlawful — in the market you're entering.
• Regulation keeps arriving. NIS2, the EU AI Act, ePrivacy, sector rules. Someone needs to tell you which of it actually applies to you, and what to ignore.

The default answer — retain a law firm in each country — gets you five sets of hourly rates, five partial views of your business, and nobody accountable for the whole. The alternative is one European General Counsel who owns your market entry end to end.

• Commercial stack, localised. MSA, DPA, order forms, and partner agreements adapted so European enterprise buyers will actually sign them — and negotiated to close, not to bill.
• First hires, done properly. Employment contracts, contractor arrangements, equity and bonus documentation across your first European countries — coordinated with local specialists where local law requires them.
• Data protection, made sellable. GDPR posture, cross-border transfer mechanics, security annexes, and the answers your sales team needs when procurement asks.
• Entity and operational setup, coordinated. We are not a formation agent or tax adviser — but we instruct, coordinate, and translate the specialists so your entity, payroll, and benefits decisions get made once and correctly.
• Route-to-market structures. Direct sales, resellers, distributors, or marketplace models — structured with the termination and competition-law mechanics Europe requires.
• Regulatory mapping. What NIS2, the EU AI Act, and sector regulation actually mean for your product in your first markets — in one memo, not five.

Engagements run on the same models as the rest of the practice: Embedded GC for a full market build-out, GC on Demand for a lighter footprint, or a fixed-fee project for the initial entry itself — templates, first hires, and regulatory map, scoped up front.

• US, UK, or APAC-headquartered B2B companies with growing European revenue — or a decision to build it
• Entering or scaling in the United Kingdom, Nordics, Netherlands, Switzerland, or Germany
• Hiring their first European employees, or signing their first European enterprise customers
• With or without a General Counsel at home — we plug into either

If your European plan is a sales office and a handful of deals, we'll say so on the first call and suggest something lighter. If Europe is a real growth bet, this is the legal function it deserves — without hiring in a market you don't know yet.

Common questions, answered →