A lawyer on call for your startup or company, every month, for a fixed fee. The capability of a general counsel, contracts, fundraising, IP, employment, compliance, and disputes, at a fraction of the cost of a full-time GC. Fractional general counsel and legal retainer services across India, the US, the UK, the UAE, and APAC.
Share your stage, your team size, and the legal workload you are dealing with or anticipating. A lawyer from our team will recommend the right level of coverage and send a clear monthly proposal, no long-term lock-in, cancel anytime.
Not sure how much legal support you need? That is exactly the conversation to have. Most founders and companies are either paying too much for ad-hoc hourly work or going without coverage they should have.
Most startups and growing companies hit the same wall. The volume of legal work, contracts, hires, fundraising, IP, compliance, becomes too much to handle ad hoc, but not enough to justify a full-time general counsel whose salary would run well into six figures. The result is usually one of two mistakes: paying premium hourly rates for piecemeal work with unpredictable invoices, or going without legal coverage and accumulating risk that surfaces at the worst possible moment, during diligence, a dispute, or a raise.
A fractional general counsel on a legal retainer solves both. For a fixed monthly fee, you get a lawyer who knows your business on call: drafting and reviewing contracts, supporting fundraising, protecting IP, handling employment and compliance, and managing the disputes that arise as you grow. It is the capability of a general counsel, the predictability of a subscription, and a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire.
My Legal Pal provides fractional general counsel and legal retainer services across India, the US, the UK, the UAE, and APAC, scaled to your stage from pre-seed through growth. One legal team that understands your whole business and your whole footprint, instead of a different firm for every problem.
A fractional general counsel (also called a fractional lawyer, fractional attorney, or fractional legal counsel) is a senior lawyer who acts as your part-time General Counsel. You get the strategic legal oversight a GC provides, board and investor support, risk management, contract and policy frameworks, oversight of external specialists, but on a part-time, retainer basis instead of a full-time salaried role.
The model has become the standard for startups and scaling companies between seed and Series B, precisely the stage where the legal workload is real but a full-time GC hire (well over USD 150,000 a year plus equity and benefits) cannot yet be justified. A fractional GC gives you that capability now, on a fixed monthly fee, with a clean handover to an in-house hire later when your volume justifies one.
The difference from a full-time GC is simple: you pay for the coverage you need, not a full salary, and you can scale the engagement up or down as your business changes.
The three ways a company buys legal support, and why a fractional general counsel on retainer fits most growing companies best.
| Factor | Ad-hoc / hourly | Fractional GC retainer | In-house GC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Unpredictable; high per-hour | Fixed, predictable monthly | USD 150k+ salary plus benefits |
| Availability | When you book and pay | On call all month, priority | Full-time, but one person’s bandwidth |
| Knows your business | Re-briefed each time | Yes, named lawyer with continuity | Yes, deeply |
| Breadth | Whatever you pay for | Broad: contracts, IP, fundraising, disputes | One person’s expertise; specialists cost extra |
| Commitment | None | Monthly, cancel anytime | Permanent hire |
| Best for | Occasional one-off needs | Growing startups with steady legal flow | Larger companies with constant legal volume |
For most startups between seed and Series B, the fractional GC retainer is the sweet spot: the breadth and continuity of in-house counsel, the flexibility of an external firm, and a cost you can actually plan around.
Simple to start, easy to scale, no lock-in.
We learn your stage, team, jurisdictions, and the legal workload you are facing or anticipating.
A clear monthly proposal: the coverage, the named lawyer, the turnaround commitments, and the fixed fee.
We get up to speed on your contracts, cap table, IP, and policies so we are useful from day one, not month three.
Through the month: contracts drafted and reviewed, advice on call, filings handled, with priority turnaround.
Proactive reviews of what is coming, fundraising, hires, launches, so legal is ahead of the need, not behind it.
Move up a tier as you grow, scope down in a quiet quarter, or cancel anytime. No long-term lock-in.
Every retainer is tailored, these are starting points. From a focused starter retainer to a full fractional general counsel engagement.
Pre-seed to seed. Core contracts, early hires, first filings.
Funded and scaling. Higher contract volume, IP, compliance.
Near-GC coverage for growth-stage companies.
Part-time General Counsel with board and strategic support.
Raise-focused: SAFEs, term sheets, diligence.
Ongoing drafting, review, and negotiation.
Trademark, IP assignment, and portfolio management.
Terms, privacy, and regulatory alignment.
Hiring to exits, agreements, and policies.
Rapid response when something lands.
Coordinated cover for cross-border companies.
Scoped precisely to your workload.
A retainer brings your recurring legal needs under one roof, with one team that knows your business. Coverage is tailored to your tier, and typically includes the following.
The day-to-day contract workload of a growing company: drafting NDAs, MSAs, vendor and customer agreements; reviewing what counterparties send you; and negotiating the terms that matter, with priority turnaround instead of one-off quotes each time.
SAFE notes and convertible instruments, term-sheet review and negotiation, shareholders agreements, ESOP documentation, and due-diligence support, the legal work a raise generates, handled by a team that already knows your company.
Trademark registration and prosecution, IP assignment from founders and contractors, and the IP clauses across your contracts, the clean IP position investors actually diligence.
Offer letters and employment agreements, contractor agreements, workplace policies, and advisory on hiring, exits, and disputes across the jurisdictions you employ in.
Your terms of service and privacy policy kept current, GDPR / DPDPA / CCPA alignment, and sector-specific regulatory support as your product and footprint change.
When something lands, a legal notice to send or respond to, or a dispute to resolve, retainer clients get rapid response and negotiation and mediation to keep matters out of court.
At the fractional-GC level, strategic legal oversight, board and investor support, risk frameworks, and management of any external specialists, the judgment of a general counsel, on tap.
You are past the stage where free templates are enough, but nowhere near needing a full-time lawyer. A starter retainer gives you a professional on call for the contracts, hires, and early fundraising that suddenly need to be done right.
Post-raise, the legal volume jumps: customer contracts, a growing team, investor obligations, IP to protect, compliance to maintain. A growth retainer is your outside legal team, scaled to the workload, at a predictable cost the board can plan around.
You need near-GC coverage but cannot yet justify a USD 150k-plus hire. A scale retainer or fractional GC gives you the strategic capability now, and a clean handover later when you do hire in-house.
You operate across India, the US, the UK, the UAE, or APAC and are tired of coordinating disconnected local firms. A multi-jurisdiction retainer gives you one team that understands your whole footprint.
A legal retainer service is an arrangement where, for a fixed monthly fee, a lawyer or legal team provides ongoing legal support to your company, contracts, fundraising, IP, employment, compliance, and disputes, instead of billing you by the hour for each separate task. It gives you predictable cost, priority access, and a lawyer who knows your business, without the expense of a full-time hire.
A fractional general counsel (fractional GC, fractional lawyer, or fractional attorney) is a senior lawyer who acts as your part-time General Counsel, providing the strategic legal oversight a GC would, board and investor support, risk management, contract and policy frameworks, oversight of external specialists, but on a part-time, retainer basis. You get the capability of a GC for a fraction of the six-figure cost of hiring one full-time. It is increasingly the standard model for startups between seed and Series B.
The work is similar; the structure and cost are not. A full-time GC is a salaried executive (well over USD 150,000 a year plus equity and benefits) dedicated to one company. A fractional GC delivers the same strategic oversight, board support, and legal judgment on a part-time retainer, so you pay for the coverage you actually need and can scale it up or down. For companies whose legal needs are real but not yet full-time, the fractional model gives most of the value at a fraction of the cost.
Retainers are priced by the level of coverage and your stage, from a focused starter retainer for early-stage startups up to near-GC coverage for growth-stage companies. The point of the model is predictability: a fixed monthly fee you can plan around, typically far less than equivalent hourly work and a small fraction of a full-time GC’s salary. We scope your retainer to your actual workload and quote a clear monthly figure.
For a company with a steady flow of legal needs, almost always. Hourly billing is unpredictable, discourages you from asking quick questions (because every call is metered), and means re-briefing a lawyer who does not really know your business. A retainer gives you predictable cost, a lawyer with continuity who knows your company, and the freedom to pick up the phone without watching the clock. For genuinely occasional one-off needs, hourly can still make sense, which is why we also offer individual services.
It depends on volume. If your legal workload genuinely needs a full-time person every day, an in-house hire may be justified, though it costs USD 150k-plus a year plus benefits. If your needs are substantial but not constant, which describes most startups up to Series B, a fractional GC or retainer gives you most of the capability at a fraction of the cost, with the flexibility to bring legal in-house later. Many companies use a retainer precisely until the volume justifies a hire.
Yes. Our retainers are monthly with no long-term lock-in, scale up as you grow, scope down in a quiet period, or cancel anytime. The model is meant to flex with your business, not trap you.
Yes. For startups and corporates operating across India, the US, the UK, the UAE, and APAC, a multi-jurisdiction retainer gives you coordinated coverage across your whole footprint, one legal team that understands the full picture rather than disconnected local firms you have to project-manage yourself.
A retainer bundles these, or you can engage them individually.
NDAs, MSAs, vendor and customer agreements.
Assess what counterparties send you.
Redlines and enterprise deal terms.
Protect your brand and IP.
Platform docs and data compliance.
Resolve disputes out of court.
This service is led by Prakhar Rai, an advocate enrolled with the Bar Council of India and the founder of My Legal Pal. An alumnus of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore, with a Master of Business Laws, Prakhar has 10+ years of experience advising startups, technology companies, and entrepreneurs on contracts, fundraising, intellectual property, and corporate matters across India, the UAE, the UK, and Southeast Asia. He has acted as outside counsel and fractional general counsel to founders through formation, fundraising, scaling, and cross-border expansion.
Reviewed by Prakhar Rai, Advocate (Bar Council of India). Last updated: July 2026.
Fixed monthly fee. Priority turnaround. A named lawyer who knows your business. The capability of a general counsel, a fraction of the cost. Fractional GC and legal retainer services across India, the US, the UK, the UAE, and APAC. Cancel anytime.
No lock-in · +91 8004800100 · contact@mylegalpal.com
