Every company reaches a turning point where its legal needs shift from occasional to constant as the business grows and undergoes pivotal changes. In the early stages, relying on outside counsel made sense for specific tasks or when the need required prompt legal advice. This solution kept costs flexible and avoided adding overhead before the workload justified it. Outside counsel on the surface might seem like an ideal solution for a small to mid-size company. But as the business grows, so do the risks, the bills, and the pressure to move faster. The question is not whether you need legal support, rather it is whether keeping it entirely outside still serves your company’s best interests.
Most large corporations already have a full legal department from General Counsel to teams of paralegals and support staff. The key word here is large, if that describes your company then we have other articles for you to check out. If not, then the topic of this article is more relevant for growing companies, family-owned businesses, and startups most found in industry sectors of Technology, Healthcare and Financial Services. These mid-size companies often enter a tipping point once revenues grow into the $50M-$200M range or headcount increases beyond a few hundred employees. Early on, leaning on outside counsel works, which offers access to a wide range of expertise. But as the business continues to grow and gain momentum, there comes a point when sending everything out no longer makes sense.
You might be wondering, well what is the difference between hiring outside counsel versus going through a search firm or agency? The difference, in a nutshell, is outside counsel sells expertise on demand, while fractional staffing provides expertise that actually integrates into the business. Another way to view this from an analogy perspective, is to think of outside counsel as “specialist surgeons”. They are trained in high risk or highly technical procedures. Outside counsel offers deep value and specialized knowledge, however they are expensive and episodic. Since they do not live inside of your organization, every engagement comes with ramp-up, context gathering and this process becomes time consuming and redundant. The billing structure of outside counsel is to maximize hours, so you pay for every phone call, email and draft, often at rates that exceed $800-$1,200 for partners. Now, outside counsel is indispensable, but if used wisely should be only for problems that truly justify the firepower.
On the other hand, to compare this to a fractional or project-based model, you are working with attorneys that are not solely there for emergencies. As an example, in our previous comparison of a specialized surgeon, a fractional attorney would be like a “physician”, embedded in your company. Instead of open-ended invoices, you get predictable pricing, set hours and pay and they will handle the day-to-day legal tasks such as contracts, compliance, HR policies and more. In terms of timeframe, think of it like this – if you have a deal to close within a set deadline, you can utilize a fractional attorney for let’s say 3 months at 10 hours per week until the deal is completed. This offers a cost-conscious method to get small to mid-size businesses running in a manner that is self-serving to its growth and build.
Risk management also changes when counsel is in-house. Instead of reacting to problems once they arise, internal lawyers build the guardrails that keep problems from happening in the first place. Policies, contracts, and compliance programs are created with prevention in mind, not damage control. Of course, not every company is ready for a full-time general counsel. Many begin with fractional arrangements or project-based assignments, adding legal support only for the hours or matters that justify the spend. These models provide access to experienced attorneys without the commitment of a permanent hire.
At Abacus Legal Staffing, we work with companies at this exact stage. Our role is to help leadership assess whether the tipping point has arrived and then connect them with the right talent model, whether that is a dedicated in-house attorney, fractional counsel, or project-based support. Adding in-house counsel is more than a hiring decision. It is a signal that your company has matured to a stage where legal judgment is part of everyday operations, not an occasional add-on. For some, that means hiring their first general counsel. For others, it starts with a fractional arrangement or project-based support.
If your company is starting to question whether outside counsel alone is enough, now may be the time to explore adding in-house legal talent. The moment you start wondering if it’s time for in-house counsel is usually the moment it already is.