Corporate Governance Lawyer
Legal Operations Made Easy.
Governance Support For Where You’re At
Startup legal needs are super spikey–that means, sometimes you need it, and the rest of the time, you’re in build mode; having a full time general counsel can therefore be hard to justify.
So how do you work with a lawyer who is not incentivized to charge by the hour; who is positioned to be an entrenched and systems-minded player; who can engage in a more flexible way?
Legal and Ops answers this question with its fixed price, turnaround-time guaranteed a la carte&unlimited menu of everyday startup legal needs.
Who we are
Legal and Ops is a small, scrappy team of post-BigLaw attorneys. Like many of you reading this, we gave up comfortable paychecks and a sense of security because we’re over the incentive problems, lack of transparency, and lack of best business practices in law firms–like offering price predictability when you understand the scope of work, or telling your customer when they’ll get their work product back. Let alone using modern tools that make legal work more efficient, and communication with your clients easier.
From formation through priced equity rounds and exits, Legal and Ops has served over 150 clients, including many from accelerators like Y Combinator and 500 Startups, or VCs like Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer, and many more.
Why Choose Us?
Legal and Ops brings you price predictability and turnaround time guarantees for everyday startup corporate governance needs.
This is enabled by our use of modern technology and adherence to ops best practices.
So, rather than self-servicing, or shipping everything to an expensive BigLaw firm, start with your Fractional General Counsel to better enable you to execute when your budget is limited, or take the workstream off your plate everywhere else.
consistent legal execution & systems
What We Advise On
Board, Officer, and Stockholder Matters
- Board and stockholder consents
- Election and removal of officers and board directors
Charter, Bylaws and Record Management
- Amendments to Certificate of Incorporation
- Adherence to Bylaws
- Upkeep and maintenance of corporate file
Capitalization Table (Cap Table) Management
- Restricted Stock Purchase Agreements, vesting, and 83(b)
- Equity Incentive Plan (AKA Stock Option Pool) Adoption
- Option Agreements (from EIP)
- Restricted Stock Awards (from EIP)
- Carta / Pulley / Shoobx third party cap table solution management & upkeep
Employee and Contractor Management
- Intellectual Property integrity
- Confidentiality non-use and non-disclosure
- Statements of Work and other standard provisions
Venture Capital SAFEs and Priced Equity Rounds
- Advice on term sheets and SAFE terms
- National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and SeriesSeed.com standard drafts and bespoke changes
- Negotiation and execution of priced equity rounds
- Post-closing matters including securities regulations, blue sky filings, cap table upkeep, and more
How We Can Help
Good corporate housekeeping means making sure you’re tax compliant, your stock grants are effective, your IP is locked down, your control rights are consistent with your needs, and your papers are generally in order. You ultimately make the decision about what’s “good enough,” but you should make it good enough not just for your own risk appetite, but for that of your future investors or acquirers who will eventually diligence your company.
Startups in silicon valley tend to follow a specific set of procedures to define what each of those outcomes look like–in fact, there’s a premium to having documents that look like everyone else’s, because it’s tried and true, and familiar to the lawyers doing diligence on behalf of investors and purchasers. Not every corporate workstream needs to be executed exactly like everyone else’s, and not every workstream is of equal importance to your company.
The beauty of a fractional General Counsel is having a middle group to either, on the one hand, doing everything yourself, or on the other hand, shipping everything to an expensive big law firm–your fractional GC is better incentivized to give you the roadmap, answer your questions, and execute wherever you ultimately agree makes sense.
Call it leverage to make the right decision, and optional leverage to execute on that decision, even further leveraged by use of modern tools to make work more efficient and price / time predictable.
Get started by contacting us today
James at CommandBar called us a human API into legal. Joe at Office Hours said our experience as attorneys and operators was exactly what they needed for compliance and legal operations issues.
As lawyers who are also builders, we understand you need risk-weighted, practical advice; and as a small shop, every client experience matters just as much to us as it does to you.