Outside General Counsel for Growing Companies
Experienced legal counsel without the need to build a full in-house legal department. Accord & Shield Legal serves as ongoing outside general counsel for businesses in Arizona, California, and Texas — one relationship covering the contracts, employment, compliance, and transactions that come with growth.
You May Be Ready for Ongoing Outside Counsel When:
Companies rarely wake up needing a general counsel. It builds — one contract, one hire, one deal at a time. If several of these sound familiar, an ongoing counsel relationship may fit better than one-off legal projects:
Contracts are now routine
Customer and vendor agreements are becoming a regular part of operations, not an occasional event.
Deals are getting bigger
Your sales team is negotiating larger or enterprise agreements — and the other side has lawyers.
You’re hiring
Headcount is growing, and with it come offer letters, policies, and classification questions.
Legal keeps reaching leadership
Questions that used to be rare now land on someone’s desk every week.
Fundraising or diligence is ahead
Investors or acquirers will look at your legal foundation — and it needs to hold up.
A transaction is on the table
You’re considering an acquisition, a sale, or another strategic move.
Legal coordination is eating leadership time
Someone senior is spending real hours managing recurring legal issues instead of running the business.
None of these require a certain size or stage. They’re signs that legal has become part of how the business operates — and deserves someone who owns it.
The Gap Between “Call a Lawyer” and “Hire a GC”
Most growing companies live in the space between two models. On one side: calling a lawyer when something breaks — reactive, disconnected, and always starting from zero. On the other: hiring a full-time general counsel — a significant commitment many businesses aren’t ready to make.
Outside general counsel fills that space. One attorney relationship that carries context from matter to matter, knows your contracts and your people, and is already up to speed when the next question arrives. You get the continuity of in-house counsel with the flexibility of outside counsel.
What an Ongoing Counsel Relationship Covers
Commercial Contracts
Customer agreements, vendor terms, and the recurring contract flow of an operating business — drafted, reviewed, and negotiated.
Contract counsel →SaaS & Technology Agreements
Subscriptions, licenses, DPAs, SLAs, and the enterprise agreements that carry your biggest deals.
SaaS & software counsel →Employment & Hiring
Offer letters, policies, handbooks, and classification as your team grows across states.
Employment counsel →Corporate Governance
Entity housekeeping, resolutions, ownership records, and the corporate foundation investors expect to see.
Formation & governance →Privacy & Business Compliance
Privacy policies, terms of service, and the compliance obligations that follow your customers across state lines.
Privacy & policies counsel →Transactions & Diligence
Fundraising readiness, due diligence preparation, and M&A support when a strategic opportunity arrives.
M&A counsel →Enterprise customer negotiations, vendor relationships, and strategic transactions don’t live in separate silos — and neither does the legal work behind them. That’s the point of one ongoing relationship.
Discover. Build. Protect. Scale.
Discover
We start by learning the business: your contracts, your team, your goals, and where legal risk actually lives.
Build
We put the foundation in order — the agreements, policies, and corporate records that everything else depends on.
Protect
As matters arise, you have counsel who already knows the context. Questions get answered by someone who doesn’t need the backstory.
Scale
As the company grows, the legal work grows with it — bigger deals, more states, and eventually the transactions that define the business.
Every engagement is structured around what the business actually needs. Direct attorney access, practical answers, and priorities that get revisited as the company evolves.
Why In-House Experience Matters
Outside general counsel works best when your lawyer has actually done the in-house job. Before founding Accord & Shield, Nadine Deeb served as in-house counsel at a technology company, supporting a workforce across multiple states and handling the daily reality of business legal work — contracts, employment, compliance, and ultimately a successful sale of the company. She has sat in the seat this service fills.
That experience shapes how the firm works: business-first answers instead of memos, awareness of how legal decisions land operationally, and counsel that moves at the pace of the company. Nadine is licensed in Arizona, California, and Texas, and works with businesses operating in and across those three states. Some clients call this fractional general counsel; we simply call it working the way in-house counsel works — from the outside.
Outside General Counsel FAQs
A single matter starts and ends: a contract gets reviewed, a dispute gets resolved, and the relationship pauses. Outside general counsel is continuous. Your attorney already knows your agreements, your team, and your history, so each new question starts from context instead of from zero. The difference isn’t the paperwork — it’s the continuity.
No. This works for companies where legal has become a recurring part of operations, whether that means contracts flowing regularly, employees onboarding, or larger deals in negotiation. If legal questions are reaching leadership on a regular basis, an ongoing counsel relationship can provide continuity and help the business address issues more proactively.
Not necessarily — and we’ll tell you honestly when it’s time. For many companies, outside general counsel is the bridge between “no legal function” and a full-time hire. If the business grows to where in-house counsel makes sense, you’ll make that hire from a position of order, with clean records and a lawyer who can help you transition.
Yes. Companies may also work with specialized counsel, including patent attorneys, litigators, or tax advisors. As outside general counsel, Accord & Shield can help coordinate the broader legal picture, handle recurring business legal needs, and work with specialized counsel when a matter requires additional expertise.
It varies with the business — that’s the design. One stretch might be a flow of customer contracts; another might center on a hiring push or a diligence request. The constant is availability and context: when something comes up, you have counsel who picks up where the last conversation left off.
Nadine is licensed in Arizona, California, and Texas, and the firm works with companies operating in and across those states — including businesses headquartered in one and hiring or selling into the others.
One Relationship. The Whole Legal Picture.
If legal has become part of how your business runs, let’s talk about what ongoing counsel would look like for you.