Boutique consultancy for organisations that need more than advice — they need clarity, structure, and a practical route forward. Built on 20+ years of global experience in the most demanding regulated environments.
Get in TouchComplex problems require someone who can size up the landscape, decide the priorities, impose structure, and move things forward. We bring the experience of having done exactly that — at scale, under pressure, across jurisdictions — and a clear-eyed intolerance for plans that are not good enough.
Service catalogues, intake and workflow design, escalation paths, SLAs, and change management — built for real-world adoption across global teams.
Requirements analysis, vendor selection, and end-to-end integration of CLM, matter management, time/spend, and AI-enabled contract analytics platforms.
Regulatory and compliance frameworks across high-risk markets — including FCPA/UKBA, third-party risk, AML/CFT, and DOJ/SEC monitorship support.
Structured programmes to reduce legal function spend — through headcount redesign, vendor rationalisation, demand management, and outside counsel governance.
RFPs, contracting, panel strategy, pricing resets, and performance controls — ensuring your supplier relationships are disciplined, transparent, and cost-effective.
Training programmes, onboarding frameworks, and scalable support models for professional services teams — from start-up through to global, matrixed organisations.
Not every organisation needs a full-time Chief Compliance Officer, General Counsel, or Chief Administrative Officer. But every organisation operating in regulated markets needs the thinking, the judgement, and the experience those roles provide. A fractional engagement gives you exactly that — a named, senior leader who owns the function, sets the direction, and is accountable for outcomes, without the cost or commitment of a permanent hire. It is a model that is increasingly how serious organisations access serious capability.
You need a Chief Compliance Officer or General Counsel — but not five days a week, and not at full-time cost. A fractional arrangement gives you a named, senior leader who attends your leadership meetings, owns the function, sets the strategy, and is accountable for outcomes. They are your CCO or GC in every meaningful sense. Regulatory bodies including the SEC and FCA require firms to designate a CCO — the fractional model satisfies that requirement fully, without the permanent overhead.
With 51% of in-house legal teams citing cost control as their top challenge, and legal technology budgets flat or falling across the sector, the pressure to do more with less has never been higher. A fractional Legal Operations Lead designs and builds the infrastructure your function needs — intake, workflow, technology selection, spend governance, and reporting — without the overhead of a permanent hire, and with the experience to avoid the mistakes that expensive full-time hires still make.
Some challenges are discrete, time-bound, and high-stakes — a DOJ or SEC monitorship, a regulatory investigation, a system implementation, or a post-FCPA restructuring. These require someone who has done it before, not someone learning on the job at your expense. A project-based engagement brings senior, independent oversight with a defined scope, a defined outcome, and a defined end date.
A 400-person manufacturing business expanding into Southeast Asia had no compliance infrastructure — no third-party due diligence, no FCPA/UKBA controls, no training programme, and no governance reporting. The board knew the risk but lacked the internal expertise to address it. A full-time CCO hire was not commercially viable at that stage of growth.
What fractional support delivered Engaged two days per week as fractional CCO, a risk-based compliance programme was designed and implemented within four months — covering third-party onboarding, controls, training, and board-level reporting. Total cost: less than 20% of a full-time hire. The business entered its target markets with confidence and a defensible compliance posture.
A fast-growing professional services firm had expanded its in-house legal team from two to twelve lawyers over three years. There was no matter management system, no outside counsel governance, no consistent intake process, and no visibility over legal spend — which had doubled without explanation. The General Counsel needed operational support but could not justify a permanent Legal Operations hire.
What fractional support delivered Over six months, a full operating model was designed and implemented — matter management system selected and deployed, outside counsel panel rationalised, spend governance introduced, and a reporting dashboard built for the CFO. Annual legal spend reduced by 28%. The GC now has a function that runs with clarity and control.
A regional healthcare business received a formal regulatory inquiry touching on its compliance programme, third-party relationships, and internal controls. The in-house team had no prior experience managing a regulatory investigation of this nature. The board needed senior, independent support — quickly — without the cost and delay of engaging a large law firm for the entire workstream.
What fractional support delivered Engaged on a project basis to lead the operational response — scoping the investigation, coordinating with external counsel, managing internal workstreams, and preparing board-level reporting. The matter was resolved within nine months. The business emerged with strengthened controls and a compliance programme that satisfied the regulator's requirements.
Mark Stanley is a global legal and compliance operations executive with over two decades of experience running high-scale legal and compliance functions across regulated industries in some of the highest risk countries in the world. This he has done across multiple industry sectors, from healthcare and medical devices to retail and professional services.
He is at his strongest when the problem is important, messy, and real. His instinct is to size up the landscape, identify the priorities, impose structure, and drive things to a conclusion — combining strategic clarity with the discipline to execute. Clients in difficult situations consistently find him more useful, not less.
His expertise spans operating model design, legal technology, compliance governance, and cost transformation. He has led turnaround programmes reducing total legal spend from above $100M to below $80M, restructured global workforces, and delivered regulatory remediation to DOJ/SEC monitorship standards across more than 60 jurisdictions.
What clients get: clarity, calm under pressure, strong judgement, and a practical route forward — with high standards throughout. With over 20 years of experience across some of the world's most demanding legal and compliance environments, clients benefit not just from that depth of experience, but from the network that comes with it. There is no problem we have not seen before, and none we have left unsolved.
Not every organisation needs — or can afford — a full-time Chief Compliance Officer, General Counsel, or Chief Administrative Officer. But every organisation that operates in regulated markets needs the thinking those roles provide. That's where a fractional engagement makes sense.
Governance frameworks, regulatory risk management, third-party controls, AML/CFT programmes, and audit-ready reporting — without the cost of a full-time CCO.
Senior legal oversight, contract management, outside counsel governance, and cross-border regulatory advice — on a retained or project basis.
Operating model design, procurement, vendor management, budget governance, and people operations for legal and compliance functions — practical leadership that scales with you.
Technology selection, systems integration, workflow design, and performance reporting — building the infrastructure your legal function needs to operate efficiently.
We spend 30–60 minutes understanding your situation, your gaps, and what good looks like for you.
We agree the role, the days per month, the outcomes we're targeting, and a fixed monthly retainer.
We work as part of your team — available, responsive, and focused on moving things forward.
A fast-growing healthtech company expanding into the US and EU needed a compliance framework but couldn't justify a full-time CCO at their stage. A fractional engagement delivered a risk-based compliance programme, third-party due diligence process, and board-level reporting — in four months, at roughly 20% of the cost of a permanent hire. The company passed its first regulatory audit with no material findings.
A mid-sized professional services firm was spending heavily on external lawyers with no visibility over what it was getting. A fractional General Counsel engagement introduced an outside counsel panel, standard scoping templates, and a matter management process. Legal spend fell by 35% in the first year. The firm also got a senior legal voice in leadership meetings for the first time — without adding a permanent headcount.
A fintech start-up received an unexpected regulatory inquiry and had no in-house legal or compliance resource to manage it. A fractional CCO stepped in immediately — scoping the investigation, coordinating external counsel, preparing the regulatory response, and putting controls in place to prevent recurrence. The matter was resolved without escalation. The engagement then transitioned into an ongoing retainer covering regulatory monitoring and governance.
Every engagement begins with a direct conversation. Come prepared, define the objective clearly, and tell us what the real constraint is. We'll give you clear thinking, honest assessment, and a practical way forward — without the fluff.