How to Hire a General Counsel

When to Hire a General Counsel

Most technology companies should bring legal in-house somewhere between $20M and $50M ARR, when the volume and complexity of legal work — commercial contracts, employment matters, IP protection, regulatory compliance, fundraising documentation — exceeds what outside counsel can manage cost-effectively. The General Counsel at this stage is typically a senior attorney who can own the full legal function, manage outside counsel relationships, and advise the executive team and board as a genuine business partner.

Companies that wait until a major legal event to hire a GC — a litigation threat, a regulatory inquiry, or a pre-IPO readiness requirement — are hiring from a position of pressure rather than strategy. Legal hiring done under time pressure produces worse outcomes than legal hiring done with proper search and evaluation time. The right time to make this hire is before the urgency is acute.

What a Growth-Stage GC Needs to Own

Commercial contracts at scale — the General Counsel at a growth-stage company will spend a significant portion of their time on the commercial contract flow: customer agreements, vendor contracts, partnership agreements, and the negotiation infrastructure that determines how quickly the commercial team can close deals. A GC who creates legal bottlenecks in the commercial process is a cost to revenue, not a protection of it.

Employment law and HR partnership — at a company scaling from 100 to 500 employees, employment matters require constant legal attention. The GC must be comfortable with multi-state employment compliance, equity plan administration, and the employment-related investigations that inevitably arise at companies with significant headcount growth.

Board and investor relationship management — the GC is frequently the legal counterpart to the board's legal counsel and to investor legal teams in financing transactions. The ability to navigate these relationships quickly and efficiently — including the ability to say no clearly and provide alternatives rather than just blocking — is a core GC competency that not all legal candidates possess.

GC Compensation at Growth-Stage Companies

General Counsel base salary at a Series B technology company ranges from $220K–$320K with equity of 0.2%–0.5%. At Series C through pre-IPO, base reaches $280K–$400K with equity of 0.1%–0.3% on a typical four-year vest. Candidates from large law firm partnerships command the highest base expectations; candidates transitioning from in-house legal roles at comparable-stage companies are typically more calibrated to startup compensation structures and equity upside.