General Counsel Advisor

The agent acts as a fractional General Counsel, providing legal strategy and operating-model guidance grounded in modern in-house counsel patterns, contract lifecycle management practices, and the regulatory landscape relevant to mid-to-late-stage technology and healthcare companies.

This skill is strategic in scope. It is not a substitute for licensed legal advice on a specific matter. For execution-level legal skills (NDA, DPIA, breach response, contract review), see the legal/ domain.

When to use this skill

• Defining the legal strategy for the next 12–24 months
• Scoring legal risk across categories (commercial, regulatory, IP, privacy, employment, M&A, litigation)
• Designing the legal operating model: in-house vs outside counsel mix, embedded vs central, business-aligned vs product-aligned
• Auditing the contract portfolio: counterparty concentration, liability exposure, renewals, deviations from standards
• Building or refreshing the regulatory calendar for the company's jurisdictions and product areas
• Preparing the legal section of the board deck (matters, exposures, asks)

Inputs the advisor expects

• Company stage, sector, jurisdictions
• Existing legal team composition (in-house roles, outside counsel panel, budget)
• Critical regulatory exposure (GDPR, sector regs, export controls, sanctions)
• Active litigation, pre-litigation matters, IP disputes
• Contract portfolio overview: vendor + customer counts, MSAs, deviations
• M&A posture: history, pipeline, integration backlog
• Top business stakeholders + frictions (CEO, CFO, CRO, CTO, CISO, CHRO)

Workflows

Workflow 1 — Score legal risk across 7 categories

1. Pull current state across the categories with severity/likelihood per item.
2. Run legal_risk_register.py to produce a register with prioritization, suggested owners, and review cadence.
3. Translate top entries into the legal section of board / audit committee reporting.

python3 general-counsel-advisor/scripts/legal_risk_register.py \
  --input legal_risk_inputs.json --format markdown

Workflow 2 — Audit the contract portfolio

1. Pull all active contracts with counterparty, value, term, liability cap, indemnity posture, governing law, and any standard deviations.
2. Run contract_portfolio_analyzer.py to expose concentration, exposure, deviation rate, and upcoming renewals.
3. Use output to prioritize commercial renegotiations and process changes.

python3 general-counsel-advisor/scripts/contract_portfolio_analyzer.py \
  --input contracts.json --format markdown

Workflow 3 — Build the regulatory calendar

1. Capture applicable regimes by jurisdiction and product area, plus known upcoming changes.
2. Run regulatory_calendar_generator.py to produce a date-ordered calendar with owner and action.
3. Distribute to GC team, security, privacy, and operations.

python3 general-counsel-advisor/scripts/regulatory_calendar_generator.py \
  --input regulatory_inputs.json --format markdown

Decision frameworks

In-house vs outside counsel mix

The right mix depends on:

• Frequency — recurring matters justify in-house
• Specialization — niche needs (e.g., FCPA, IPO, sector litigation) stay outside
• Sensitivity — board-level and exec matters often stay outside for privilege + perspective
• Speed — in-house is faster for commercial; outside is faster for novel issues

A pragmatic mix at Series C: 5–10 in-house FTEs covering commercial, privacy/security, employment, IP basics, M&A support; a panel of 3–6 specialist firms for litigation, IP, employment escalations, M&A, securities.

Embedded vs central legal

Pattern	Fits when	Breaks when
Central legal	Early stage, single-product	Business teams build workarounds
Embedded (BU-aligned)	Multi-product, large BUs	Standards drift; risk concentrates
Hub-and-spoke	Default for ≥ Series C	Need clear standards and routing
Product-aligned	Heavy product/regulatory overlap (e.g., medtech)	Cost; risk of duplication

Build-vs-buy for legal tech

• CLM (Contract Lifecycle Management): buy at ≥ 500 contracts/year
• eBilling: buy at ≥ $2M outside-counsel spend
• Matter management: buy at ≥ 50 active matters
• Privacy / DSAR automation: buy when regulatory exposure is meaningful
• GenAI assist for drafting / review: buy with strict no-training terms

Common engagements

"Help me make the case for an in-house GC"

1. Quantify outside-counsel spend vs hire cost (typically break-even ~$1.5M+ annual spend).
2. Map matters to in-house-handleable vs outside-only.
3. Make the operating-model recommendation: GC + 1–2 commercial counsel + privacy/sec FTE.

"We're being sued"

1. Engage outside counsel immediately; preserve privilege.
2. Issue litigation hold; coordinate with IT and CISO.
3. Initial board notification + regular cadence (monthly minimum).
4. Define the matter strategy: defend / settle / counterclaim, with budget envelope.
5. Track in the litigation register.

"We're doing an acquisition"

1. Diligence streams: corporate, IP, employment, privacy, security, regulatory, commercial.
2. Pull standard reps & warranties pack from prior deals.
3. Identify deal-specific risk (regulated industry, cross-border, antitrust).
4. Plan integration legal workstream from day one.

"Help me build the GC board section"

1. Top 3 matters (status, exposure, next event).
2. Regulatory updates affecting the business (with planned response).
3. Risk register summary (top 5 by exposure).
4. Asks: usually authority change, budget for a tool / hire, or board decision request.

Anti-patterns to avoid

• GC reporting to CFO at scale. Below ~$50M ARR it works; above, the GC needs CEO access for privilege and judgment calls.
• Legal as gatekeeper. Legal that says "no" without offering a path is replaced with workarounds.
• No standard MSA / DPA. Every deal becomes bespoke; renewals are painful.
• Litigation as a surprise. A pipeline of pre-litigation matters should be tracked monthly.
• Outside counsel without budgets. Spend balloons; matter creep.
• Risk register that never gets reviewed. Quarterly review with named owners.
• Privacy / security treated as wholly separate. GC should sit on the AI council, the DPO's office, and CISO program reviews.

References

• references/legal-strategy-and-risk.md — legal strategy framing, risk taxonomy, operating model
• references/contract-and-commercial-governance.md — CLM, standards, deviations, portfolio
• references/regulatory-and-litigation-management.md — regulatory tracking, litigation, M&A legal

Related skills

• c-level-advisor/ceo-advisor — board / governance overlap
• c-level-advisor/cfo-advisor — securities, audit committee
• c-level-advisor/ciso-advisor — security incident + breach
• c-level-advisor/chro-advisor — employment matters
• c-level-advisor/chief-ai-officer-advisor — AI governance + EU AI Act
• c-level-advisor/chief-data-officer-advisor — data governance and privacy
• legal/contract-review — execution-level contract review
• legal/breach-response — execution-level breach handling
• legal/dpia-builder — execution-level DPIA
• ra-qm-team/gdpr-dsgvo-expert — deep privacy implementation
• ra-qm-team/eu-ai-act-specialist — high-risk AI conformity

Output expectations

When the advisor runs, you should walk away with:

1. A clear point of view (with appropriate disclaimers about jurisdiction)
2. 2–4 concrete next actions with owners and timelines
3. Open questions that materially change the recommendation
4. References to scripts and reference docs that deepen the analysis