how the general counsel program works
As retained General Counsel, Jack A. Donenfeld (or another senior-level lawyer who is carefully selected by Jack Donenfeld and the client company) works on a part-time basis either at the client company's office or off-site (at the client's option!). The goal is to establish the kind of regular and continuous relationship that ensures the best possible counsel concerning both organization matters as well as day to day business issues. The areas in which we have specific expertise are listed here.
We can handle both day to day business matters, such as negotiating commercial contracts, loan arrangements and employment agreements, as well as more specialized matters like planning securities offerings and other corporate finance activities. We become an integral part of your management team on an outsourced, contract basis, becoming ingrained in your business, providing practical, strategic advice and mitigating risk.
benefits
Our General Counsel Program provides the close hands-on legal advice of an in-house general counsel without paying a big salary and providing employee benefits. And, compared to retaining a traditional hourly rate law firm, having us serve you as retained counsel can provide benefits like:
- Freeing up time for senior management to enable them to focus on core company operations.
- Accessing better advice based on a hands-on assessment of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats as the company grows and changes.
- Reducing the total cost of legal services.
- Receiving better value for fees expended based on preventing legal difficulties upfront, rather than resolving them after they have risen.
- Obtaining the kind of legal perspectives that are only available from a lawyer who is actually participating in executive management meetings, providing advice about issues as they arise.
- Facilitating closer working relationships with all members of management, not just one primary contact.
- Enhanced mitigation of legal risks as key business strategies are developed with a potentially broader range of feedback and guidance than otherwise would be possible.
For larger companies that already have an in-house legal department, we can provide a flexible cost-effective extension of their existing in-house capacity, cost effectively dealing with the smaller problems that never seen to come to the top of an expanding workload, as well as handling specialized projects that require specialized expertise.
Service Fees
We understand the challenges and opportunities that face you and are prepared to handle and manage all aspects of your company’s legal affairs, which means directly performing the tasks in our areas of competence and, then, negotiating the fees for, managing and supervising other law firms for matters that are best handled by such firms like litigation, patent work and certain other areas.
We offer a flat monthly fee engagement to provide in-house legal support for a set number of days weekly, biweekly or monthly. This enables us to customize the arrangements to fit a company's budget and legal needs. Although rates vary based on the nature of the legal services provided and the time involved, total fees charged are always less than our normal hourly fees and always substantially less than the hourly fees typically charged for comparable time by outside counsel!