General Counsel in Harlow
Burns & Co. provides fractional general counsel to companies in Harlow and across Essex: senior, in-house style legal support on a flexible basis, without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire.
Book a ConsultationHarlow is a post-war new town in west Essex, laid out on the garden-city model with green wedges running through it. Its housing is largely mid-century, with later infill and regeneration in the town centre, and it sits within easy reach of Stansted and the M11.
The companies we support in Harlow are usually past the point where legal work can be handled ad hoc, but not yet at the point where a full-time general counsel is justified. That gap is exactly what fractional cover is designed to fill.
Growing companies in Harlow usually reach the point where legal questions arrive faster than they can be outsourced, but not the point where a full-time general counsel makes sense. Fractional cover sits in that gap: a senior lawyer who knows the business, joins the conversations early and keeps decisions commercially grounded.
Contract review, drafting and negotiation
Employment and HR legal support
Governance, board reporting and company secretarial
Risk, compliance and regulatory questions
Managing external advisers and specialist counsel
Support on transactions, funding and commercial deals
Fractional general counsel is for companies in Harlow that have reached the point where legal questions arrive faster than they can be outsourced, but not the point where a full-time hire is justified. It gives you a senior lawyer who knows the business, joins the conversation early, and keeps the legal position aligned with what the company is actually trying to achieve.
In practice that means contract review and negotiation, employment and HR support, governance and board reporting, risk and compliance questions, managing external advisers, and being the person in the room when a commercial decision with a legal dimension is being taken.
Some of the older new-town construction and its communal heating arrangements need specific attention, so surveys and management packs carry real weight here. Harlow is a classic new town: 1950s and 1960s terraces, maisonettes and low-rise flats laid out in neighbourhoods, with later private estates on the edges. Both feed into how a General Counsel matter in Harlow is scoped, priced and staffed.
One-off or continuing, every {{place}} engagement follows the same four stages, and you always know which one you are in.
We start by looking at where the company actually is: the contracts it runs on, how legal questions are handled now, who is accountable for what, and where the exposure sits. That gives a clear picture of what needs attention first.
Fractional support is set up around the business rather than a fixed package. We agree how much time is needed, how the engagement works, who we deal with internally and how decisions are escalated, in writing, before any work starts.
From there we operate as part of the management team: reviewing and negotiating contracts, advising on employment matters, preparing board papers, and being available for the questions that need an answer today rather than next week.
The arrangement is reviewed as the company changes. What a business needs at twenty staff is not what it needs at two hundred, and the scope should move with it rather than becoming a fixed cost nobody uses.
It is priced against an agreed amount of time each month rather than the cost of a full-time hire, which is usually a fraction of a senior in-house salary once salary, benefits, pension and recruitment are counted. The scope is agreed in writing before work begins.
A firm is instructed matter by matter, and each new instruction starts with someone learning your business. Fractional cover is a standing relationship: the context is already there, so the answer comes faster and the advice is joined up with what the company is doing commercially.
Where it is useful, yes. Many clients ask us to prepare or review board papers, report on legal and regulatory matters, and attend the meetings at which decisions with a legal dimension are taken.
Yes. We act for clients across Harlow and the wider Essex area, and we handle most matters remotely, so distance is rarely an issue. Where a matter needs attendance on site or at a local hearing we arrange it.
We provide general counsel across Harlow and the surrounding Essex area, including:
Tell us what you need and we will come back with a clear scope, a named contact and a fixed fee wherever we can.
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