Part-Time General Counsel Services
Biotech Law Center attorneys serve as part-time GCs for companies that do not have a full-time General Counsel or an in-house legal department. Our attorneys have served as GCs and Assistant GCs at public and private companies. We have been on executive leadership teams. We understand the priorities that drive business decisions and the metrics that drive value. As a result, our lawyering style is practical and pragmatic. We pride ourselves on being responsive and finding creative solutions to advance our clients’ interests.
What Does a Part-Time General Counsel Do?
- We handle the specialized business contracts and routine commercial agreements typical of companies in the drug development, medical device, and digital healthcare fields. This includes:
- Agreements with or for suppliers of research products and services
- Agreements associated with clinical trials, including agreements with CROs, SMOs, Principal Investigators and Clinical Research Sites
- Lab Testing and Product Testing Agreements
- Agreements related to the manufacture, packaging, distribution, and supply of medical devices, diagnostics and pharmaceuticals
- Software licenses for suppliers of digital health solutions, including SaaS Subscription Agreements and EULAs
- Routine licensing transactions
- Agreements with academic and research institutions, including MTAs and Sponsored Research Agreements
- We provide counseling to senior executives on day-to-day legal matters. This includes advice on legal compliance, routine employment matters, equity incentive plan administration, contract interpretation, informal dispute resolution, and implementing corporate governance best practices.
- We identify and mitigate legal and compliance risks. Our attorneys have experience with risk management methods and implementing risk mitigation plans. This includes developing legal compliance programs, updating templates for common contracts, documenting corporate and employee policies, keeping clients informed of applicable laws and regulations, and assisting with IP landscape and patent portfolio analysis.
- We help companies work more effectively with outside law firms. Many times, we are closer to our client’s day-to-day operations than other outside law firms. As a result, we can identify opportunities for those other firms to provide legal services that are in their wheelhouse but outside the scope of our engagement. As an example, shortly after we started working with one of our clients, we observed that they were not properly documenting stock options for employees. We were able to work with the outside law firm that drafted the company’s equity plan to address the issue and avoid significant future tax liabilities for the client and its employees. This, in turn, led to a broader legal compliance discussion that ultimately resulted in new projects for the company’s full-service outside law firm and helped ensure legal compliance was not a stumbling block to a successful sale of the company.
EXAMPLE – Mentoring an In-House Attorney
Some companies will try to fill the legal service gap (described here) by hiring an attorney with, say, 4-6 years’ experience to handle the company’s day-to-day legal matters. While nominally cost-effective, this approach has potential pitfalls. Hired to shave costs, such an attorney may be hesitant to ask for outside help or find themselves in unfamiliar territory from time to time. A cost-effective way to mitigate these risks is to pair such an in-house attorney with an experienced part-time GC from Biotech Law Center. In this situation, we are able to provide mentorship and guidance, backstopping or leading the review and negotiation of various contracts as dictated by the company’s full-time, in-house counsel.