- Consumer's Choice Award 2019
- Consumer's Choice Award 2020
- Consumer's Choice Award 2021
- Consumer's Choice Award 2022
- Consumer's Choice Award 2023
- Consumer's Choice Award 2024
Palatine businesses deserve practical, high level legal leadership without the overhead of a full time general counsel. An Outside General Counsel arrangement places senior attorneys inside your strategic planning, governance, and day-to-day operations, aligning legal risk with business goals. From startup to established company, the model supports contract negotiation, regulatory compliance, mergers and acquisitions readiness, and scalable advisory services. Our approach focuses on collaboration, clear communication, and measurable results that help you move forward confidently.
As you grow, the outside GC model adapts to changing needs, whether you require ongoing governance, rapid risk assessment, policy development, or specialized counsel for complex transactions. We integrate with leadership, finance, and operations to provide timely guidance, protect strategic priorities, and reduce reliance on ad hoc counsel. With Palatine focus and Illinois licensing, our team offers practical solutions that keep legal work aligned with your business objectives.
An outsourced General Counsel delivers strategic leadership without the fixed cost of a full time hire. It provides access to senior counsel across corporate law, contract management, employment, and compliance matters. The model supports faster decision making, better vendor negotiations, and stronger governance practices. You gain continuity in counsel, consistent policies, and a proactive stance toward risk. For growth focused companies in Palatine, this approach offers stability, flexibility, and clear accountability as your business scales.
Frankfort Law Group brings broad experience in business and corporate matters across Illinois. Our attorneys work as an embedded leadership team, collaborating with executives, boards, and departments to shape strategy, draft policies, and supervise legal programs. We emphasize practical, action oriented guidance, with a track record in contract lifecycle management, regulatory readiness, and risk mitigation for mid-market firms. Our approach centers on clear communication, measurable outcomes, and durable solutions.
Outside General Counsel is a fiscally efficient way to ensure legal leadership is present where it matters. The model blends governance, risk assessment, and strategic advising to help you navigate complex rules and evolving business needs. By integrating with your leadership team, the lawyers provide clarity on priorities, timelines, and compliance obligations, enabling faster, smarter decisions.
This service emphasizes proactive planning, contract oversight, and policy development that align with business goals. You receive predictable budgeting, scalable support, and access to senior counsel when you need it, without the overhead of a traditional corporate attorney department. The outcome is stronger governance, clearer accountability, and a stronger ability to pursue opportunities.
Outside General Counsel is a flexible arrangement in which senior lawyers operate as part of your organization’s leadership. The focus is on business oriented legal problem solving, aligning legal strategy with commercial goals. The engagement covers governance, risk management, contract oversight, compliance programs, and advisory services for major transactions. This model preserves continuity, reduces friction, and helps you move quickly through changing circumstances.
Key elements include governance oversight, contract lifecycle management, policy creation, risk assessment, and proactive regulatory monitoring. Processes involve regular leadership reviews, policy updates, risk dashboards, and scalable support across corporate, employment, IP, and privacy matters. The aim is to provide clear, actionable guidance, align legal work with business priorities, and foster a proactive posture toward potential challenges.
This glossary explains terms commonly used in an outsourced general counsel engagement. It helps leadership and legal teams align on definitions, expectations, and workflows for efficient collaboration, ensuring everyone speaks the same language when addressing governance, risk, contracts, and compliance. Understanding these terms improves decision making, speeds approvals, and reduces miscommunication.
An engagement model describes how the outside general counsel relationship is structured, including the form of engagement (retainer, ongoing advisory, or project based work), pricing, and expected outcomes. It sets the framework for responsibilities, communication cadence, and escalation paths. A clear model helps align expectations between the business and legal team and supports predictable budgeting and timely decision making.
Governance refers to the systems, processes, and policies that steer a company toward its objectives while managing risk. In an outsourced GC arrangement, governance includes board and leadership oversight, policy development, compliance programs, and monitoring of contractual obligations. Effective governance creates transparency, accountability, and a consistent approach to legal matters across the organization.
Contract lifecycle management is the end-to-end process of creating, negotiating, executing, tracking, and renewing contracts. In an outsourced GC model, this includes standard templates, risk assessment, approval workflows, performance monitoring, and renewal planning. Efficient contract management reduces cycle times and helps protect value across vendor agreements, customer contracts, and supplier arrangements.
A compliance program is a structured set of policies, procedures, training, and monitoring activities designed to ensure adherence to laws and regulations. In this context, it covers corporate governance, employment, data privacy, antitrust, and industry specific rules. A robust program minimizes risk, supports audits, and helps the organization demonstrate responsible governance.
Companies may choose in-house counsel, a traditional law firm, or an outsourced general counsel model. Each option has distinct cost structures, decision making dynamics, and levels of control. An outsourced GC combines senior leadership with flexible staffing, enabling scalable support, continuity in strategy, and integrated advice across multiple legal domains without the overhead of a full time internal department.
A limited approach may be appropriate when your needs are project based, regulatory updates are incremental, or a specific matter requires focused guidance. In these situations, you can access senior counsel for defined periods, maintain budget control, and avoid broad ongoing commitments while still benefiting from strategic direction and practical risk management.
Flexibility is a key advantage when your organization experiences seasonal workloads, rapid growth, or shifting priorities. A limited engagement allows you to scale resources up or down as needed, ensuring legal support aligns with current business objectives without long term fixed costs or commitments.
A comprehensive service ensures legal guidance is woven into core business planning. It supports strategic decision making, cross-functional collaboration, and proactive risk mitigation across governance, contracts, compliance, and corporate development. With broad coverage, leadership gains a single point of accountability and a consistent approach to evolving legal requirements.
When regulatory environments become more complex, a full service approach helps you stay ahead of changes, implement robust policies, and maintain operational readiness. A comprehensive model provides ongoing oversight, timely updates, and coordination across departments to meet evolving rules and standards without sacrificing business momentum.
A comprehensive approach delivers holistic protection, integrated processes, and consistent governance. By addressing strategy, risk, contracts, and compliance within a unified framework, leadership can anticipate challenges, align resources, and pursue opportunities with confidence. The model supports long-term growth, stronger vendor relationships, and a clear path to scalable legal support as needs evolve.
In this setup, teams collaborate across legal disciplines, ensuring policies reflect business priorities and regulatory obligations. The result is a more cohesive organization where legal and business goals reinforce each other. With measurable outcomes in efficiency and risk reduction, your leadership can focus on strategic initiatives and core operations.
A holistic risk management process evaluates exposure across contracts, employment, data protection, and regulatory compliance. By creating integrated dashboards and proactive controls, you gain visibility into potential threats and can act quickly to mitigate them. This approach reduces surprises, supports audits, and strengthens overall resilience.
An aligned governance framework ties legal activities directly to business strategy. Policies, approvals, and performance metrics reflect priority objectives, enabling consistent decision making. This alignment improves accountability, accelerates approvals, and helps translate strategic plans into compliant, executable actions.
Begin with a well defined scope and schedule. Document expectations for leadership involvement, reporting cadence, decision making authority, and escalation paths. Clarify how success will be measured, what constitutes milestone completion, and how budget adjustments will be handled. This foundation ensures smooth collaboration and helps you realize the full value of the engagement from the start.
Develop and maintain living policy manuals, contract templates, and risk playbooks. Regular reviews ensure policies stay current with laws and industry practices. A practical library of resources helps teams act confidently, maintain compliance, and respond quickly to changing business needs without reworking established processes.
If your organization seeks strategic legal leadership without fixed overhead, an outsourced GC can provide senior guidance across governance, contracts, and compliance. The model supports steady growth, predictable budgeting, and integrated cross functional collaboration, enabling you to focus on core business goals while maintaining strong risk controls.
When you need flexible, scalable support in a changing market, this service offers a practical approach. You gain access to experienced counsel for critical matters, with the ability to expand or reduce services as priorities shift. The arrangement emphasizes clarity, accountability, and pragmatic problem solving that aligns with your business trajectory.
Growing companies facing complex contracts, regulatory updates, governance challenges, or frequent vendor negotiations benefit from embedded leadership. When leadership requires timely risk assessments, policy improvements, or cross department collaboration, outsourcing legal leadership provides continuity and a pragmatic approach to addressing these needs.
Frequent contract negotiations across multiple vendors, customers, and partners can strain internal resources. An outsourced GC offers seasoned guidance on terms, risk allocation, and performance requirements, helping you close deals efficiently while preserving value and compliance. This support accelerates workflow and reduces bottlenecks in the contracting process.
Regulatory changes require timely updates to policies, training, and controls. A dedicated legal lead ensures your programs stay current, reduces the risk of noncompliance, and coordinates with affected departments. Proactive monitoring and rapid response help you maintain readiness during transition periods and audits.
Effective governance relies on clear policies, transparent reporting, and well structured board processes. An outsourced GC can stabilize governance rhythms, align board materials with strategy, and support governance reviews. This arrangement improves accountability and strengthens your organization’s leadership framework.
Our team stands ready to support Palatine businesses with practical, accessible legal leadership. We tailor services to fit your size, industry, and growth stage, offering hands on guidance, robust contract management, and governance support. Reach out to discuss how an Outside General Counsel arrangement can help you navigate risk, seize opportunities, and build a resilient operation.
Frankfort Law Group brings a broad platform of business and corporate capabilities across Illinois. We collaborate closely with executives, finance, and operations to deliver integrated legal leadership. Our approach emphasizes practical problem solving, transparent communication, and durable results that align with your business objectives and risk tolerance.
Clients benefit from a stable, scalable model that adapts to growth, regulatory demands, and market changes. We provide continuity in leadership, clear policy guidance, and efficient management of contracts and compliance—helping your organization move forward with confidence.
If you are seeking reliable, accountable legal leadership without the overhead of a traditional department, our team stands ready to help you plan, implement, and evolve a comprehensive legal program that supports everyday operations and strategic initiatives.
We begin with a discovery session to understand your business, goals, and risk profile. From there, we map out a tailored engagement plan, assign a dedicated leadership contact, and establish governance routines. Throughout the engagement, we monitor milestones, adjust priorities, and provide timely reporting to help you stay aligned with strategy.
Step one focuses on understanding your business, the regulatory landscape, and key contract types. We gather documents, review existing policies, and identify areas for immediate risk reduction. This phase sets the foundation for informed decisions and a practical path forward.
During discovery, we engage with leadership to capture objectives, milestones, and constraints. We align legal priorities with business strategy, map decision rights, and establish communication channels. The outcome is a clear plan that guides subsequent steps and ensures everyone is working toward shared goals.
We perform a baseline risk assessment across governance, contracts, HR compliance, and data privacy. The assessment highlights gaps, quantifies potential impact, and informs rapid remediation actions. With a practical risk profile, leadership can focus on high value improvements and strategic initiatives.
Step two emphasizes policy development, contract improvements, and governance enhancements. We draft or update policies, establish templates, and implement processes that streamline day to day legal work. The goal is to create repeatable, scalable practices that support efficient decision making and consistent outcomes.
Policy development involves creating clear, enforceable rules that guide behavior and decision making. We tailor policies to your industry, business model, and regulatory environment, ensuring they are easy to understand and practical to implement across teams. Regular updates keep policies relevant as your needs evolve.
Contract improvements focus on standardizing language, reducing risk, and expediting approvals. We provide templates, negotiating guidelines, and approval workflows that balance protection with speed. A streamlined contract process supports growth and fosters consistent partner interactions.
Step three concentrates on implementation, ongoing monitoring, and continuous improvement. We establish dashboards, track outcomes, and routinely review risk, governance, and compliance metrics. The process ensures that the legal program remains aligned with strategy while adapting to new opportunities and challenges.
Implementation brings policies and templates to life through practical deployment across departments. Monitoring provides ongoing visibility into performance, adherence, and emerging risk. Regularly scheduled reviews ensure the program evolves with your business, maintaining relevance and effectiveness over time.
Continuous improvement involves analyzing results, gathering feedback, and refining processes. We adjust governance structures, update training, and optimize workflows to keep the legal program efficient and responsive. This ensures your organization remains resilient and well prepared for future needs.
At the Frankfort Law Group, we take great pride in our commitment to personal service. Clients come to us because they have problems, and they depend upon us to help them find solutions. We take these obligations seriously. When you meet with us, we know that you are only doing so because you need help. Since we started our firm in northeast Illinois, we have focused on providing each of our clients with personal attention. You do not have to be afraid to tell us your story. We are not here to judge you or make you feel ashamed for seeking help. Our only goal is to help you get results and move past your current legal problems.
At the Frankfort Law Group, we take great pride in our commitment to personal service. Clients come to us because they have problems, and they depend upon us to help them find solutions. We take these obligations seriously. When you meet with us, we know that you are only doing so because you need help. Since we started our firm in northeast Illinois, we have focused on providing each of our clients with personal attention. You do not have to be afraid to tell us your story. We are not here to judge you or make you feel ashamed for seeking help. Our only goal is to help you get results and move past your current legal problems.
An Outside General Counsel is a senior legal lead who works with your leadership as part of the executive team, guiding strategic decisions, governance, and risk management. In Palatine, this approach brings seasoned guidance without the costs of a full time internal department. The model emphasizes collaboration, clear accountability, and practical solutions that fit your business. You’ll see improved decision cycles, better contract outcomes, and more consistent policy application across the organization. It is a flexible, business oriented way to manage legal needs.
Outsourcing GC services typically improves cost predictability by replacing unpredictable hourly fees with a structured engagement. It also reduces the burden of managing a large in house team and speeds up decision making through direct access to senior counsel. Operationally, you gain a single point of contact for governance, contracts, and compliance, helping you allocate resources more efficiently and focus on growth initiatives.
Common contract and policy areas include vendor agreements, customer contracts, employment policies, data privacy, and regulatory compliance programs. An outsourced GC can standardize templates, implement review processes, and provide risk assessments for major deals. This support helps you shorten cycle times, improve consistency, and ensure that important terms reflect business priorities and legal requirements.
Alignment is achieved through structured governance practices, regular status updates, and shared performance metrics. The leadership partner remains involved, decisions are clearly documented, and there is both upward and downward visibility into risk and opportunity. Clear objectives, consistent reporting, and defined escalation paths ensure legal guidance supports business strategy instead of operating in a silo.
Onboarding typically begins with a discovery session, followed by a tailored engagement plan and assignment of a dedicated point of contact. The timeline depends on scope, but most Palatine clients experience a smooth transition within weeks. Early milestones include policy reviews, contract template deployment, and governance framework setup to accelerate value realization.
Governance practices include board and leadership reporting, policy creation and updates, contract standardization, risk dashboards, and compliance monitoring. The engagement emphasizes transparency, accountability, and proactive risk management. Ongoing training and communication with teams ensure governance remains practical and integrated with everyday business activities.
Pricing generally follows a predictable retainer or milestone based model, designed to align with the level of service and scope. This structure reduces surprise fees and helps you forecast legal costs accurately. We emphasize value through efficiency, risk reduction, and strategic advice that supports business objectives, rather than charging for every small task.
Yes. We integrate with your internal teams and current vendors by establishing shared processes, communication channels, and governance protocols. We collaborate with finance, HR, IT, and operations to ensure consistency across departments and to avoid duplication of effort. This integrated approach streamlines workflows and supports unified decision making.
During regulatory changes or audits, we provide timely updates to policies, training materials, and compliance programs. We coordinate with auditors, prepare required documentation, and address gaps quickly. The goal is to minimize disruption, demonstrate readiness, and maintain continuous improvement across governance and operations.
Start with a brief introductory call or meeting to outline business goals, current legal needs, and potential scope. A follow up discovery session helps us tailor an engagement plan. You can request a proposal that includes objectives, milestones, and a suggested governance framework. From there, we align on a path to begin delivering practical legal leadership in Palatine.