Somewhere between the first $2,000 invoice from outside counsel and the realization that a full-time general counsel would cost $300,000, most growing Dallas companies notice the gap. Legal questions arrive weekly. The good ones (a new customer contract, an employee issue, a partnership proposal) deserve a fast answer. The hourly model produces a slow one, mostly because nobody wants to start a clock for every question.
That gap is what a fractional general counsel is built for. A Dallas business law attorney working under this model becomes an embedded part of the business on a predictable monthly fee, available for the day-to-day work that does not justify either a full-time hire or a per-question hourly bill.
The phrase gets used loosely. Below is what it actually looks like in practice.
What’s Included
A typical fractional GC engagement covers the recurring legal work a growing company actually generates. For a $5M to $50M Dallas business, that usually means:
- Drafting and reviewing customer, vendor, and partner contracts
- Updating standard templates (MSAs, NDAs, statements of work)
- Employment matters: offer letters, separation agreements, handbook updates, internal policy questions
- Commercial lease review and negotiation
- Compliance check-ins (Texas employment law, data privacy, industry-specific rules)
- Board and ownership matters: minutes, resolutions, cap table issues, equity grants
- Risk-spotting on new initiatives before they go live
- Coordinating with specialists when something falls outside the engagement
The defining feature is access. The owner or CFO calls or emails without thinking about the meter, and decisions get made in hours rather than weeks.
What’s Usually Not Included
Fractional GC is not unlimited legal services. Most engagements carve out:
- Significant litigation that demands discovery, depositions, and motion practice
- Complex M&A transactions, capital raises, or restructurings
- Specialty matters that require dedicated practice areas (patent prosecution, immigration, ERISA, complex tax planning)
- Major regulatory investigations or enforcement actions
When one of these arrives, the fractional GC typically helps select and manage the right specialist rather than handling it personally. That is often the more valuable role: someone who already knows the business deciding what gets sent out, to whom, and at what cost.
Engagement letters should spell out the carve-outs clearly. A good one defines the monthly scope or hour ranges, notes the rate for work beyond the retainer, and confirms who pays for outside specialists.
How It Compares to Hourly Outside Counsel
Hourly outside counsel works well for large, discrete projects. It works poorly for the small questions that pile up in a growing business. A few reasons.
The meter problem. When every call generates a bill, executives stop calling. Small problems become large ones because nobody wanted to spend $400 to confirm they were small.
The cold-start problem. Each new matter requires the lawyer to learn the business again. A vendor contract review that takes a fractional GC 30 minutes can take outside counsel two hours because there is no baseline to work from.
The consistency problem. Different associates handle different matters. Positions taken on one contract conflict with positions on the next because no one is tracking the institutional view.
Hourly rates for experienced Dallas business attorneys run roughly $400 to $800 at mid-sized firms, and higher at the larger ones. A company generating 10 hours of legal work per month at $600 per hour pays $6,000, plus the friction costs above. A fractional retainer covering the same scope often runs comparable or lower, with the friction removed.
When the Math Works
The fractional model fits a specific window. Below that window, hourly is fine. Above it, the company needs full-time in-house counsel.
The window generally looks like:
- Annual revenue roughly $3M to $75M
- Legal work that is recurring but not constant (5 to 30 hours per month)
- More than one contract type to manage
- Employees on payroll, which alone generates regular legal questions
- A growth trajectory that will produce new legal needs over the next two to three years
A 200-person Dallas company with daily legal questions probably needs a full-time GC. A solo founder with one annual contract is better served paying hourly for that one contract. Everything in between is where fractional engagements pay for themselves.
A useful benchmark: if outside counsel invoices average more than $3,000 per month and the company is hesitating to call the lawyer about real questions, the current model is already costing more than it should.
Selecting the Right Fractional Counsel
Selection matters more here than with project-based hiring. The fractional GC will sit in on most of the company’s important non-litigation decisions for years. Look for someone with prior in-house experience or a long history advising growing companies, not only big-deal transactional practice. Ask how they handle the carve-outs, what their typical response time looks like, and how they coordinate with specialists when a matter falls outside scope.
A short trial period is reasonable. Three to six months is enough to see whether the fit works without locking either side into a long engagement.
Bringing It Together
For background reading, the Association of Corporate Counsel (acc.com) publishes useful materials on in-house and fractional counsel models, and the State Bar of Texas (texasbar.com) maintains practice guides on attorney engagement letters worth reviewing before signing one.
If your legal work has outgrown hourly invoicing but cannot yet justify a full-time hire, a fractional Dallas business law attorney is usually the cleanest answer. Run the numbers on the last six months of legal spend, count the questions you decided not to ask because of the cost, and you will know fairly quickly whether the model fits your company.
