Fractional General Counsel

About this opportunity

CXOwork clients are looking for experienced General Counsel who can provide practical, commercially aligned legal guidance across contracts, compliance, risk management, and governance — without slowing the business down.

This is a fractional leadership role designed for senior legal professionals who go beyond theoretical advice — helping businesses move faster while staying protected, compliant, and well-structured. You will be the company's senior legal voice on commercial deals, corporate matters, and the everyday questions that shouldn't need outside counsel.

We are looking to build a General Counsel bench from different industries — Fintech; Insurance & Insurtech; Healthcare & life sciences; AI & machine learning; Cybersecurity; Manufacturing & industrials; Logistics & supply chain; Climate-tech & clean energy; Consumer goods, retail & fashion; and Public sector & defence are all in active rotation. Different industries demand different legal leadership — banking regulation and money-transmitter work in fintech, HIPAA and payor contracting in healthcare, breach-disclosure and data-protection law in cybersecurity, IP and product-liability work in manufacturing and consumer brands, FAR/DFARS and GSA-schedule work in the public sector — and our clients want General Counsels who have actually advised through the regulatory regime their business operates under. If your career sits outside the standard SaaS-and-fundraising legal playbook, that depth is exactly what we're looking for.

Core responsibilities

• Advise founders and leadership teams on contracts, legal risk, governance, and compliance — translating legal implications into clear, business-focused language
• Draft, review, and negotiate commercial agreements — client contracts, vendor agreements, partnerships, NDAs, MSAs, and order forms — balancing risk protection with business speed
• Identify legal and regulatory risks across operations and business models; establish practical risk-mitigation frameworks that don't slow execution
• Guide companies on applicable compliance requirements — industry-specific, geographic, and operational — and stand up a privacy/data-handling posture the team can actually follow
• Support employment matters: offer letters, equity grants, separation agreements, contractor classifications, and basic dispute response
• Provide actionable legal input on strategic decisions — partnerships, expansions, pricing models, and new business lines — and support legal aspects of fundraising and investor diligence
• Build and standardize legal processes, policies, and documentation; establish governance frameworks aligned with company growth and maturity
• Manage outside counsel — choose them, scope them, hold them accountable on cost and timeline, and bring work in-house when it makes sense
• Establish the operating cadence: contract intake, signature workflow, legal review SLAs, and quarterly risk reviews with leadership
• Guide companies through expansion, restructuring, or organizational change — entry into new markets, M&A diligence, and transition from informal legal practices to scalable systems

Required qualifications

• JD from an accredited law school; active bar membership in good standing in at least one US state
• 10+ years as a practicing attorney, including senior in-house roles (Associate General Counsel, Head of Legal, or General Counsel) at startups, SMEs, or growth-stage companies
• Strong command of commercial contracting — drafting, negotiating, and redlining customer, vendor, and partnership agreements
• Working knowledge of corporate governance, employment, IP, and privacy fundamentals at a level that lets you triage and decide when to escalate to a specialist
• Comfortable working directly with CEOs, founders, boards, and external counsel
• Ability to walk into a chaotic legal function and turn it into something predictable, documented, and scalable
• Excellent business judgment — practical, commercial, and willing to make a call rather than hide behind "it depends"

Nice to have

Not required — but will strengthen your match quality.

• Big Law training at an Am Law 100 firm early in career
• Industry depth in SaaS, fintech, marketplaces, e-commerce, healthcare, or consumer products
• M&A or capital-markets transaction experience — buy-side, sell-side, or financings
• International or cross-border contracting experience and multi-jurisdictional legal frameworks
• Prior fractional, interim, or consulting General Counsel experience

Application process

1. 01Application + bar membership confirmation and one deal or matter case study (10 min)
2. 0245-minute panel — commercial contract negotiation walk-through and risk-framework discussion
3. 03Profile approved and surfaced to matching companies
4. 04Founder intro call — legal risk profile and priority matter assessment
5. 05Engagement kick-off within 1–2 weeks