There's a gap most growing businesses fall into: too much legal work for a founder to keep handling personally, but not enough — or not consistent enough — to justify a full-time general counsel's salary. Outsourced legal support is built for exactly that gap.
Signs you've outgrown ad hoc handling
Contracts sitting unreviewed for weeks, the same NDA getting redrafted from scratch every time, or a founder personally negotiating vendor terms they're not confident about are all signs the current approach isn't scaling with the business.
What outsourced support actually covers
Contract drafting and review, template development, employment document prep, and overflow research can all be handled on a flexible, project or retainer basis — without the fixed cost and hiring process of an in-house hire.
It scales in both directions
Unlike a full-time hire, outsourced legal support can flex up during a busy quarter — fundraising, a big contract negotiation, a hiring wave — and back down when things are quieter, without the awkwardness of over- or under-staffing an internal legal function.
It's also how many companies bridge to an eventual GC hire
Outsourced support isn't necessarily a permanent substitute — many companies use it specifically to bridge the gap until legal volume genuinely justifies a full-time hire, using the outsourced relationship to define what that first hire actually needs to own.