Outside General Counsel

Embedded in Your Business

For nearly 25 years, GTC has served as outside general counsel to companies at every stage. For early-stage startups, we are the company’s legal department. For growing technology businesses, we sit alongside in-house counsel and handle the work an internal hire would otherwise cover. For larger companies with established legal teams, we supplement those teams on specific transactions, projects, or areas of specialty. We work as part of the team.

Our outside general counsel work covers what an in-house legal function would: corporate governance and board support; commercial contracts, including customer agreements, vendor and procurement contracts, NDAs, MSAs and SOWs, channel and reseller arrangements, and SaaS and cloud deals; intellectual property strategy, protection, and enforcement; data privacy and cybersecurity programs; technology and licensing transactions; financing transactions and investor relations; partnerships and strategic alliances; and the operational and regulatory issues that come up in between. Where a matter calls for specialist counsel in an area or jurisdiction we do not cover, we coordinate with our trusted network of referral firms and manage the engagement on your behalf. We handle the routine and the strategic the same way, with the context to know which is which.

Our outside general counsel work is distinguished by how it draws on the rest of the firm. Day-to-day, our team works alongside the firm’s patent, AI, open source, privacy and cybersecurity, trademark, M&A, and technology transactions practices. In practice that means a board deck informed by the same team that runs your IP strategy; commercial contracts drafted with privacy and security input built in; open source policies vetted by the team that runs OSS audits; and corporate housekeeping that holds up if and when the company is later sold, financed, or acquired.

Our attorneys include veterans of leading law firms and senior in-house legal roles, with decades of experience working with the world’s leading technology and media companies. The general counsel role demands both legal strategy and execution, and we handle both: setting the legal direction and doing the day-to-day work to carry it out. We advise in the context of your business and strategic goals, working alongside you toward the outcome you are actually trying to reach.

Whether you are a founder who needs a general counsel before the scale warrants an internal hire, an in-house team that wants senior coverage without expanding headcount, or a larger company that needs a steady outside hand on a piece of the business, we staff it the same way: a small, experienced team that knows your business and your priorities.