Fractional Counsel for Companies Ready for The Next Stage
Flexible legal support for growing companies with customer matters, contracts, employee issues, AI questions, compliance needs, and leadership-level legal decisions.
Legal Support Built for How Companies Actually Work
The firm works with scaling companies, such as B2B companies, technology businesses and professional services firms, that need experienced legal support without a full-time in-house lawyer hire.
Business Law Services for Your Business and Your Team
Outside General Counsel
Ongoing legal support for companies that need practical business counsel before hiring a full-time in-house lawyer. Also includes overflow support for in-house legal teams.
Commercial Contracts
Contract review, drafting, negotiation, and systems that help businesses manage recurring agreements with greater consistency, clearer expectations, and stronger internal processes.
Legal Frameworks
Templates, checklists, processes, and legal infrastructure for companies that are growing quickly and need stronger systems to support the next stage of the business.
AI Governance
Guidance for businesses using AI tools, building AI products, or responding to customer, vendor, and compliance questions around responsible AI use.
Compliance, Risk Assessment & Operational Strategy
Practical support for identifying legal risks, improving internal processes, and turning compliance into a stronger business advantage.
Corporate Training
Legal training for staff, leadership teams, and business units on the issues they encounter in daily operations, including contracts, AI use, compliance, risk awareness, and working effectively with legal counsel.
Put the Right Legal Structure Behind Your Operations
Your business needs legal guidance that can be used in real decisions, real workflows, and real conversations across the company.
Extended Counsel helps you build practical systems, answer recurring legal questions, and give your team a clearer way to handle the legal issues that come with growth.
Industry Insider Legal Experience
Our Founder
Heather Asher founded Extended Counsel after seeing the same pattern across companies of different sizes: the business grows, the contracts multiply, the decisions get more complex, and legal systems are often added later than they should be.
As a former General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Heather has worked directly with CEOs, CFOs, sales teams, operators, boards, and legal departments. She has managed commercial contracts, corporate governance, M&A matters, legal playbooks, outside counsel, and the daily legal questions that come with running a company. And yes, Heather went to Harvard Law. But she also believes credentials matter much less than real, practical legal results make operating a business easier.
What Makes Extended Counsel Different
Extended Counsel is designed for companies that need legal support to be clear, practical, and useful across the business.
Business-Team Ready
Legal advice should make sense to the people who need to use it. Extended Counsel can work with leadership, sales, operations, HR, finance, and legal teams so guidance fits the way work actually gets done.
Practical Legal Infrastructure
Extended Counsel helps companies create the templates, checklists, workflows, playbooks, policies, and training they need to handle recurring legal issues more consistently.
Support That Fits the Stage You’re In
Your company may need ongoing outside general counsel, a focused legal checkup, a contract framework, AI governance, or team training. The support is shaped around what your business needs now and what it needs to prepare for next.
Getting Started With Extended Counsel
01
Schedule a 15-Min Consultation
Tell us what your company needs, what legal questions are reaching your team, and what kind of support would be most useful right now.
02
Confirm Fit and Scope
Extended Counsel will run a conflicts check, learn more about your business, and identify the right structure for the work, whether that is a focused project, ongoing counsel, or team training.
03
Start With a Clear Plan
Once the engagement agreement is signed, we get to work with a clear scope, practical next steps, and a legal support model built around your business.
Our Business Law Blog
What is Included in the Legal Checkup Service?
One of the key benefits of working with a Fractional GC is having a lawyer with real in-house experience learn your business, identify key legal issues and provide practical action steps to mitigate those issues. Not to make it perfect, but help protect revenue as you grow with realistic solutions that reduce the most significant risks.
Why Does My Company Need Fractional Legal Services?
Fast‑growing companies run on speed, innovation, and bold moves. But behind every deal, contract, and transaction lurks one thing that can quietly derail momentum: legal risk.
5 Simple Ways to Save Money & Headaches with Vendor Contracts
Here's a breakdown of the first simple save. Before you negotiate your next vendor deal, ask yourself one question: do we already have this?
Testimonials
Frequently Asked Questions
Outside general counsel gives your company ongoing legal support without adding a full-time in-house lawyer. That can include contract review, legal strategy, risk assessment, policy development, AI governance, corporate training, and support for leadership as legal questions come up in daily operations.
It may be time to work with outside general counsel when legal questions are regularly reaching the CEO, COO, CFO, founder, or head of operations. Common signs include more customer contracts, new vendor relationships, expanding teams, AI use, compliance questions, or recurring issues that would benefit from a more consistent legal process.
A commercial contracting attorney can help draft, review, and negotiate customer agreements, vendor contracts, professional services agreements, software and technology contracts, NDAs, contractor agreements, and other business contracts. Extended Counsel also helps companies build contract templates, playbooks, workflows, and negotiation standards so contracting becomes more consistent across the business.
Legal frameworks are the practical systems that help a company handle legal issues as it grows. This may include contract templates, approval workflows, internal policies, compliance checklists, intake processes, playbooks, and training for business teams. The goal is to give your team a clearer way to handle recurring legal questions before each issue becomes a one-off scramble.
An AI governance lawyer helps companies create policies, structures, and review processes around AI use. This can include internal AI policies, customer and vendor questions, data use, risk allocation in contracts, employee guidance, and responsible AI practices that fit how the company actually works.
Compliance and risk assessment counsel can help identify legal risks, prioritize what needs attention, and create a practical plan based on the company’s size, industry, budget, and operations. For a growing company, this can be especially useful when entering new markets, adding employees, adopting new technology, preparing for diligence, or responding to customer requirements.
Yes. Extended Counsel provides corporate training on practical legal topics that business teams encounter in daily operations. Training may cover contract basics, AI use, compliance, risk awareness, escalation points, and how to work effectively with legal counsel.
Yes. Extended Counsel can support in-house counsel with overflow work, contract projects, policy updates, legal operations support, outside counsel coordination, and business-team questions. This is especially helpful for lean legal teams that need senior-level support without adding permanent headcount.
The firm operates virtually, which allows it to work with business teams in different locations.
The first step is to schedule a consultation. From there, Extended Counsel will learn more about your company, run a conflicts check, discuss the right scope of work, and provide an engagement agreement before legal work begins.
Start Working With Extended Counsel
Share what your team needs legal support with now, whether that is contracts, AI governance, compliance, training, outside counsel support, or a broader legal framework.
1870 The Exchange SE
Suite 220 PMB 632657
Atlanta, GA 30339 (mailing only)