Business Archives : JTO Legal Services

Fractional General Counsel involves contracting targeted contingent staffing for your business’s legal needs. Fractional general counsel professionals provide more than just an outsourced service. Retaining Fractional General Counsel is more like hiring a part-time attorney to specialize in your business rather than outsourcing to a law firm for spot work at expensive hourly rates.

Fractional General Counsel provides part-time legal services for a company based upon a retainer agreement. In return, the company receives the benefits of an attorney committed to your business without the fully loaded costs of an employee. Likewise, the company also avoids the headache of paying for time and materials for every phone call or email to outside law firm counsel and is able to focus on building a relationship with an attorney who learns and understands your business.

With the fractional general counsel model, your company has an attorney “on call” and available as legal needs or questions arise. The attorney assimilates into your business structure and in turn knows the importance of learning the business, how to work with your people and vendors, and how to put legal advice in the context of your overall company objectives to facilitate risk navigation.

Furthermore, a proactive fractional general counsel in your corner enables you and your business to gain back time, achieve greater clarity, create better outcomes, and navigate risk.

Who is Fractional General Counsel for?

Some companies may require an attorney for several hours each day. Others might require two or three days each week or as little as a few hours per week. The beauty of this model is that the needs of the company dictate the time the fractional general counsel spends working for that company and the stabilized cost structures help the company balance its budget accordingly. So, if your costs for outside legal services are hard to predict or too high, and you are hesitant to email or call your outside attorney for day-to-day legal concerns because of the cost, you may want to explore hiring a fractional general counsel.

Benefits of Fractional General Counsel:

Attorney becomes intimately familiar with the company and its needs.
Predictability around ongoing legal costs, allowing for more accurate budgeting.
Reduced anxiety about emailing or calling your point-of-contact attorney to discuss routine matters.
Proactive approach with more focus on risk navigation and prevention, keeping potential legal issues in check.
Discounts on related services beyond the scope of the retainer.
The services of an experienced business attorney without the cost of a full-time executive-level employee (or their accompanying benefits package).

How does this Fractional General Counsel thing work?

Consult
- Prior to representation, your needs are articulated and defined through discussion and bundled accordingly. This allows James to then map out a navigable plan around your legal risk factors.
Map
- Now that we’ve agreed that there is synergy and a retainer is signed, you now have a Fractional General Counsel mapping and prioritizing your legal services on a regular basis, along with specific deliverables and timelines to track to. In essence, your time is freed up to concentrate on enabling your business to perform optimally.
Navigate
- You now have the Fractional General Counsel meeting your needs and the support you need to navigate your legal risks. Furthermore, you have a single point-of-contact to proactively maneuver those risks alongside you.

Why JTO Legal?

JTO Legal partners with clients to navigate risk in the face of constantly changing conditions impacting their business and personal legacy. We proactively execute legal strategies to assist our clients in leaving behind a valued legacy. JTO Legal navigates your risk at the velocity of change.

Navigating Client Risk.

Putting your business and people first in tailoring legal services with integrity for the best possible management of risk at the velocity of change.

Partnering Across Change.

Navigating risk requires trustworthy partnerships across constant change as people, technology, and organizations create value in their success.

Legal Services Scaling Methodology.

We have a methodology for scaling legal services to changing environments at the speed of business.

Legacy Building.

We strive to enable our clients to leave a valued and powerful legacy in their market, their people, and their personal lives.

At JTO Legal, fractional general counsel packages can offer the following:

Availability for routine questions and advice via phone or email
Draft, review, advise, and negotiate on agreements and contracts
Advise on legal matters involving employees
Assist with acquisitions and mergers
Assist with succession planning
Provide board and governance support, including help with board meetings, minutes, and resolutions
Advise on compliance with regulations that apply to the client’s business
Manage outside attorneys when the client needs highly-specialized expertise or faces litigation
Advise on outside resources for services such as cybersecurity, insurance, accounting, branding, and more.

How much do Fractional General Counsel services cost?

These tiers are categories that are negotiated in the consult phase as bundled services. The following are examples of the bundled service categories that can be provided depending on each company’s needs. (Please note: Nonprofit Package Specials are available upon request)

Gold: Starting at $1000/month

Up to 2 hours of video/phone calls and emails per month
Business Formation
Contract review, drafting, and editing
Agreement negotiation assistance
Basic IP applications and trade secret agreements
Website Agreements
Employment Agreement review & recommendations
Vendor Agreement review & recommendations
General Counsel
Discount on any time and materials hourly work outside the scope of the agreement

Platinum: Starting at $2500/month

Gold + up to 3 additional hours of video/phone calls and emails per month
Corporate Structuring
Commercial Transactions
Distribution Agreements
Securing IP
Agreement negotiation(s) assistance
Independent Contractor and Vendor Agreement review, drafting, and editing
General Counsel
Discount on any time and materials hourly work outside the scope of the agreement

Rhodium: Starting at $5000/month

Platinum Services + 4 additional hours of on video/phone calls and emails per month
Succession Plan Strategy
Business valuation
Agreement reviews, version controls, and renegotiation(s) assistance
Corporate Governance Assistance
Compliance Reviews & Guidance
HR workplace policies and procedures review, editing, and drafting (including Employee Handbook)
Continued Monitoring of IP
General Counsel
Discount on any time and materials hourly work outside the scope of the agreement

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How to build a business plan – the Lean Canvas Model

Starting a business can be an all-consuming adventure that has the potential to be both very rewarding and very challenging at the same time. When trying to figure out what kind of Minnesota business you want to start and why you want to pour your life and soul into that business, there are some tools that can help. Ash Maurya’s Lean Canvas is one such tool that you can utilize to help you think through their business plan.

The Lean Canvas is broken into nine questions and is essentially a one-page business plan which according to the book Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster, was inspired by Alex Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas.

This one page canvas can assist you in assessing your risks, rewards, and trade-offs. While the Lean Canvas has nine simple, but provocative questions for you to ask yourself, JTO Legal has added a tenth in order to help you further think through your business plan.

The Ten Questions:

Here are the ten questions that you should be asking yourself prior to making real investments in starting up a new business:

The Business Problem: What are some real needs and problems that are crying out for solutions for people today, and how does your business expect to address those problems for them? If there are already solutions, that are good, you need to determine if they are indeed viable alternatives to what you want to provide. If there is no clear business problem for you to solve, you are already in trouble.
Customer Segments: Who are your targeted customers and market segments? Your message must reach out to these groups in a clear and concise manner.
Unique Value Proposition: Is your elevator pitch clear, distinctive, and memorable? Remember, if it is not compact, or if it cannot explain why you are different or better than the competition, AND make people remember it, then you may need some help crafting that message.
Solution: Are you able to adequately provide solutions to your target customer and market problems? What capabilities do you provide that someone would want to pay you for?
Channels: What is your pathway to customers and how will you get paid? A business without customers, is not a business, it is research.
Revenue Streams: What are your sources of revenue? Knowing how much revenue you think you can get is important, but knowing how often and at what intervals or frequency those revenue streams provide real cash is critical. A business needs money to make money, so a clear plan to manage cash flow is critical to success.
Cost Structure: What are your fixed and variable costs? Initial start-up costs are only a part of a good plan, knowing how cash is used each month will make for a successful business plan.
Metrics: How will you measure success and how will you track that measurement? This is one of the most critical elements to consider. Enthusiasm often biases perception, and real metrics keep you honest. Knowing them in advance will make you discipline enthusiasm with reality, and make for a more profitable business.
Unfair Advantage: What gives you the edge? There is one thing that will separate your business from the pack, and you need to make that clear to everyone. Your business needs to have a clear view of its competitive advantage.
Timeframe: What does your timeframe for success look like? Many great ideas die because they take too long to get to market. You need to know what you must accomplish at various intervals (over 30 day increments, quarterly increments, etc.) Defining targets you need to hit by each interval is what a plan is for.

Creating a visual one-page business plan that answers these questions and posting it by your computer to remind yourself daily of where you are headed as a business will help you evaluate your success and constantly strive towards it. Without a plan, it is easy to lose focus and flounder. Danger lies not only in the enthusiasm of a great idea without a business plan, but also a business plan without true measures of execution effectiveness. That is why measuring your plan is critical.

As the saying goes: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance! So get drawing on that whiteboard, break out Visio, or print out a word document that reminds you of your ultimate vision – then track reality against expectations with real metrics. If you do, you will be more successful and less stressed in the long run!

Legal advice can be crucial during the start-up phase. JTO Legal is available as a resource for guiding your business. So, if you would like to learn more about starting a new business, please feel free to contact the firm at our Contact page.

Fractional General Counsel Explained