What is a fractional General Counsel and does your business need one?
18th November, 2025
A fractional General Counsel (GC) is a role that is becoming increasingly widespread among forward-thinking businesses.
A difficult economic climate, in particular the increased costs and regulation of employment for UK businesses, has seen a shift in how organisations are looking to address their commercial legal needs, and this cost-effective and flexible alternative is something that many are now realising the benefits of.
What is a fractional General Counsel?
Every business will have legal matters to navigate as they grow, whether that be to mitigate risk or protect their value. For many organisations, the overheads that come with a full outsourcing of all legal work, or with recruiting and employing their own in-house legal team, can be prohibitive.
In recent years fractional General Counsel has become an increasingly popular option for growing businesses. Traditionally, a fractional General Counsel would be a senior qualified solicitor(s) that handles the legal needs of your business in a way that is totally flexible to your needs, delivering high-level and hands-on support either on a part-time or project basis. Fractional GCs often have a small number of portfolio businesses that they support.
When do businesses typically bring in fractional support?
The extent to which a business needs the services of a fractional General Counsel will depend on where the business is on its growth journey.
Fast growing SMEs typically look to bring in legal support to ensure that they mitigate and protect against key risks (for example ensuring contracts protect revenue and limit liability), and to ensure that they lock in value (for example by securing IP rights) – both of which are critical to the success of a business in terms of day to day stability, and in any investment or exit process.
Successful fast-growing SMEs will look to bring in support on legal matters for these reasons, often before they have the budget for an internal hire or a full outsource.
A fractional GC will be able to work with the business to identify and prioritise key risks and value protection needs, and work on a flexible basis to tackle those key areas.
Choose fractional GC from Ward Hadaway
Ward Hadaway‘s innovative fractional GC as a service re-imagines the traditional fractional model by giving business owners flexible on-demand access to both a key lawyer, but also a broad range of technical experts.
This means that a business benefits from the flexibility of budget as they do with a traditional fractional GC, but they gain access to our wider team of specialists – which avoids further outsourcing that is often needed in the traditional model. Our team truly understands your goals and can help you navigate all manner of legal challenges, meaning you can focus on scaling your business.
With many of Ward Hadaway’s commercial solicitors having previously worked in-house, they hit the ground running whether working as the sole legal professional with the company’s leadership group or as part of the in-house legal team.
If you’d like to find out more about how you could benefit from a fractional General Counsel service, please get in touch with Matthew Cormack.
Please note that this briefing is designed to be informative, not advisory and represents our understanding of English law and practice as at the date indicated. We would always recommend that you should seek specific guidance on any particular legal issue.
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