Entrepreneurs, small businesses, and medium size businesses face some of the same issues as large multi-national corporations. The difference is that large corporations have a legal department to handle their problems. Companies have in-house (corporate counsel) or outside counsel. Michelle Miller served as in-house (corporate counsel) for over 12 years, and after operating her own firm for a few years, she recognized many smaller companies needed someone that they could call "their lawyer" without the total expense of hiring a lawyer as an employee. After considering this issue, Michelle decided to create a DIGITAL GENERAL COUNSEL® legal subscription (primarily flat-fee) service for entrepreneurs and companies that need a General Counsel without the in-house expense.

Oftentimes, when a legal issue comes up, you, need to find a lawyer to assist which could impact business initiatives and goals. The Digital General Counsel legal subscription service provides external attorney resource that handles and manages the routine legal needs of a business on a part-time basis. Each time you have to hire a different attorney, they need to learn your business to assist you with legal issues which can be cumbersome. Before hiring a full-time in-house attorney, non-attorney employees – such as managers, executives, or even the CEO -are often asked or expected to review contracts and assist with corporate transactions, which can create a legal risk without knowing the key legal issues. Plus, the strain of regulatory compliance can make doing business difficult.

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A General Counsel with global, business, contract, regulatory compliance, and intellectual property experience, like Michelle Miller, can play a vital role to ensure your company adhere to requirements and potentially reduce the possibility of regulatory fines, fees and even interest. The attorney’s knowledge of the company deepens with each new task. which reduces the need to take time to working with different lawyers or no lawyer at all. No attorney can be a specialist at everything, but an attorney with corporate legal experience is an asset and can give your company the peace of having a legal partner without the higher in-house counsel salary and benefits. An in-house General Counsel (Chief Legal Officer) has a salary range of $160,000 to over $700,000 according to an article released by Crown Partners. A part-time external counsel can be retained at different fee ranges. An external General Counsel can be a trusted advisor even though he or she is not an employee. In summary, An outside general counsel will provide on-demand legal services to the business without the expense of employing a full-time general counsel.

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