The Idea
General counsel.
Without the overhead.
Every growing business reaches a point where legal risk becomes a boardroom issue. Contracts, compliance, employment, disputes, transactions — the stakes rise and the decisions become too important to leave to an ad-hoc call to a high street firm.
The traditional answer is to hire a general counsel. But a full-time GC is expensive, slow to recruit, and often under-utilised. Burns & Co. GC offers the alternative: the judgement, oversight, and leadership of an experienced general counsel, provided on a fractional basis for a predictable annual fee.
We work with SMEs turning over roughly £2m to £50m, and with larger companies who need additional senior legal firepower. Wherever you are on that journey, we plug in as your legal leadership — and become the trusted adviser your business grows around.
Why Burns & Co. GC
Six reasons to make
us your general counsel.
Senior Legal Leadership, On Tap
You get a seasoned general counsel — not a junior solicitor learning on your time. Strategic legal leadership at the top table, available when it matters, without the six-figure salary and benefits package.
A Fraction of the Cost
Our packages start at £48,000 a year. The average in-house general counsel now costs around £92,000 once salary, bonus, pension, employer's National Insurance and recruitment fees are accounted for. You get senior expertise for roughly half the price.
Commercially Minded
We are business people who happen to be lawyers, not lawyers who happen to work in business. Every piece of advice is framed around the commercial outcome — protecting the business while helping it move forward.
Flexible and Scalable
Legal needs ebb and flow. A transaction, a dispute, a regulatory change, a hiring push. A fractional GC flexes with the business — deep support when you need it, lighter cover when you don't.
No Recruitment, No Overhead
Hiring a GC takes months, a salary you must justify every year, and a management burden. We remove all of it. No recruitment fees, no notice periods, no gaps in cover when your lawyer moves on.
Proven at the Highest Level
Our people have advised some of Britain's best-known businesses. That experience — negotiating, litigating, and protecting — is now available to ambitious mid-market companies.
The Economics
Half the cost.
All of the seniority.
The cost of an in-house general counsel is rarely just a salary. Add employer's National Insurance, pension contributions, bonus, benefits, recruitment fees, and the hidden cost of downtime between hires, and the true figure climbs fast. Our packages deliver senior legal leadership for a single, predictable annual fee — with no recruitment risk and no long-term employment liability.
In-House General Counsel
£92,000
Average total annual cost of an employed GC, including salary, NI, pension and recruitment.
Burns & Co. GC
From £48,000
Senior fractional general counsel, on a predictable annual package. No recruitment, no employment overhead.
Experience
Trusted by
household names.
Our team's experience has been built advising some of Britain's most recognisable businesses — organisations where the legal stakes are high and the margin for error is thin. That same rigour is what we bring to every client relationship.
Past clients of our team's experience.
Who We Work With
Built for
ambitious businesses.
We are the right fit for businesses that have outgrown ad-hoc legal advice but are not ready to justify a full-time hire — and for larger organisations that need senior legal capacity without adding permanent headcount.
Book an Appointment
Let's talk about
your business.
A short, no-obligation conversation is the best way to see whether a fractional general counsel is right for you. Book an appointment and we'll talk through your situation, your risks, and what good legal leadership would look like for your business.