Leadership In Law Podcast

17 Avoiding Legal Issues with a Fractional General Counsel with Rich Daniels

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 1 • Episode 17

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Unlock the secrets of proactive legal strategies with Rich Daniels, the visionary founder and president of Intrepid Legal Inc. Join us as Rich unpacks his transformative journey from private practice to becoming a fractional general counsel. Rich dives into the nuances of integrating part-time legal expertise into business teams, offering insights into setting up robust legal frameworks from the get-go and the importance of reassessing client needs over time. This episode is a goldmine for understanding the pivotal role of fractional general counsel and why regulatory compliance is more crucial than ever in our data-centric world.

Discover why companies generating $5 million or more in revenue can't afford to overlook the benefits of a fractional general counsel. Rich shares real-world examples of how keeping employee manuals updated and having a comprehensive legal strategy can save businesses from costly litigation. Learn about the advantages of proactive legal evaluations and the importance of a reliable network of legal experts for tackling both national and international issues. Plus, get insider tips on how to refer potential clients to Intrepid Legal and why a free initial consultation could be a game-changer for your business. Tune in and equip yourself with the knowledge to navigate today’s complex legal landscape.

Rich Daniels is the founder and President of Intrepid Legal, Inc., a Fractional General Counsel and Strategic Advisory company. Rich is an experienced legal executive and strategic partner who has helped organizations maximize business operations, minimize legal exposure and reduce costs in a variety of industries.

He has collaborated with CEO’s and management teams to facilitate company decisions and create new streams of revenue through savvy contract negotiations and drafting. Rich also understands the importance of intellectual property, regulatory compliance, litigation management and dispute resolution. His approach is to learn a company’s business intimately and to develop relationships with all functions of the organization. He has been successful in delivering cost-savings initiatives through innovative solutions in a variety of industries such as consumer products, manufacturing, medical devices and real estate, to name a few.

Reach Rich here:
intrepidlegalinc.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rldanielsjdmba/


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Leadership in Law podcast with host Marilyn Jenkins. Cut through the noise, get actionable insights and inspiring stories delivered straight to your ears your ultimate podcast for navigating the ever-changing world of law firm ownership. In each episode, we dive deep into the critical topics that matter most to you, from unlocking explosive growth to building a thriving team. We connect you with successful firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies and hard-won wisdom. Just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. I'm your host, marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, rich Daniels, to the show today. Rich is the founder and president of Intrepid Legal Inc. A fractional general counsel and strategic advisory company. Rich is an experienced legal executive and strategic partner who's helped organizations maximize business operation, minimize legal exposure and reduce costs in a variety of industries. He has collaborated with CEOs and management teams to facilitate company decisions and create new streams of revenue through savvy contract negotiations and drafting. Rich also understands the importance of intellectual property, regulatory compliance, litigation management and dispute resolution. His approach is to learn a company's business intimately and to develop relationships with all functions of the organization. He's been successful in delivering cost-saving initiatives through innovative solutions in a variety of industries, such as consumer products, manufacturing, medical devices and real estate, just to name a few. I'm excited to have you here, rich Welcome.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, marilyn, I really appreciate you having me.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. Tell us a bit about how you got started.

Speaker 3:

Well, I actually started in private practice.

Speaker 3:

I was trained as a litigator and did a lot of transactional work as well.

Speaker 3:

And then after a while I was working on some major international litigation for a client and I was doing more on the negotiation, doing massive settlements, dealing with insurance companies, doing a lot more business-related matters as opposed to litigation, and that kind of prompted me to want to go in-house and I felt that I could use my background in finance because my undergraduate degree is in finance and just help companies from a more progressive perspective, looking forward and trying to help them out.

Speaker 3:

Did that for a number of different organizations in a number of different industries, as you just mentioned. And then about two and a half years ago, I was with a company and I was looking for a new opportunity because I wasn't happy where I was and just doing my networking and people had said have you ever thought about being a fractional general counsel? And that was to me and I think to a lot of people that was a foreign term and so I kind of spent about three months doing some due diligence and learning what it was and it kind of prompted me to take a leap of faith and launch my business as a fractional general counsel.

Speaker 2:

Wow, there's a lot of fractional officers beginning. Now I'm seeing a lot more of that. So what exactly is a fractional general counsel?

Speaker 3:

So it's really pretty basic. A fractional general counsel fractional kind of throws a lot of people but all it is is I'm just a general counsel for an organization and the fractional part is I just work part of my time for different companies. So during the same time I may have three, four, five, six different clients where I'm acting as their general counsel, and the only difference between myself and a traditional general counsel is I'm part-time. You know I'm at-time. You know I'm at 1099 versus a W-2.

Speaker 2:

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So so that would be the difference between the fractional and the and an outside general counsel. You just bill your hours.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so so I'm. I'm glad you brought that up. I don't. I don't really like the term outside general counsel and I know a lot of and there's a lot of fractional folks in the general counsel space who use that word. And the reason I don't use that the word outside is because I try to get to learn my clients. I want to be inside, I want to be seen as their general counsel by everyone on the team. So if they have leadership meetings, I'm there. If they have a board of directors and they have board of directors meetings, I want to be part of that and contribute and participate in those meetings. So I want to learn the company, learn the culture, because ideally, if the company is growing, they're going to get to a point where they're going to need a full-time person and I'm going to help them find that person. I'll know the company, their culture, their structure and I'll help get the right person in the right seat for them.

Speaker 2:

Okay, that makes a lot more sense. So you're more of a member of the team as opposed to finding them a few hours when they need some help on the contract.

Speaker 3:

Exactly exactly. I'm there, you know, from the time I get retained all the way as long as they need me. You know they may not need me as much. Get retained all the way. As long as they need me, they may not need me as much. And usually what I do is I'll work for someone for three or four months and then I reassess with the leadership team, the CEO, to see how much time they need, because usually a lot of the work is done in the front end where I can be very proactive, whether it's getting their contracts in place, helping them with their policies and procedures, their regulatory compliance, whatever the situation may be. And then as time goes on, once we've set that foundation, they probably won't need me as often. So it could go from one day a week to one day a month or one day every two weeks, whatever the company needs. And as the company grows they're going to need my services more.

Speaker 2:

Okay, now do you find that any one particular area, such as regulatory compliance, has most businesses have more need in it? Because the data you know, this day and age of so much data, people don't realize they're kind of not complying with certain rules.

Speaker 3:

Well, I think regulatory compliance is an issue, but a lot of the companies I work with I find the most, the most lacking is their contracts. They just don't. Either they don't use contracts or their contracts are not something that they concentrate on. In fact, I have one client where I was coming in to do corporate work and talking with one of the owners and she says to me oh yeah, we have contracts, and she unilaterally said this to me. She goes we have contracts but we've never had anybody look at them. Maybe I should have you review them. And I'm like that's like a good idea. So I have started doing that for that client.

Speaker 3:

Some of these companies are doing tens of millions of dollars of revenue, of work and they only work off purchase orders, which is very dangerous to them and the partners that they're working with, because if there's ever a dispute, there's nothing to base it on. What the dispute is about, it's all by a phone call and things like that. And if you get to a point where you're in litigation or arbitration, it's going to be hard for a judge, jury or arbitrator to decide on something when there's nothing to decide on.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So looking at your contracts, or make sure you actually have contracts in place.

Speaker 3:

Exactly, very important.

Speaker 2:

At what point in time? What would be? How do I say this question? When is the best time to have a fractional general counsel? What size business? When would we think that we should look at that?

Speaker 3:

Great question. Thank you for that. I say that I work for companies anywhere from 2 million upwards to 100 million in revenue. But I think once you get to the 5, 10 million in revenue, that's when you're going to start seeing certain legal issues, whether it's compliance, whether it's human resources. You know you may have some services or products that you want to develop your brand, so there's IP issues that come into play. So I'd say about the 5 to 10 million range is where you really start need to look at somebody to come in as your general counsel and you're going to have those issues that you need to address and that will increase as your revenue increases and as you grow.

Speaker 2:

Now, would this be like a C-suite decision or a CEO decision, depending on what your daily tasks are, what you're spending time on?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, Absolutely. It would come from them, and what I like to do is I like to be very proactive, as I said earlier, and help the CEO or the leadership team so they can work on the business and they don't have to concentrate on the legal issues or the regulatory issues or whatever it may be. Obviously, I'll work with the business people, as I always have in my traditional general counsel roles, but I also work with doing things and just reporting what's been done so they can concentrate on their main core business and they don't have to worry about, you know, legal issues or if we're using outside general counsel, outside attorneys, not general counsel, outside counsel you know they don't have to deal with going through them, setting up budgets, making sure that they're doing the work that's going to help the company grow.

Speaker 2:

Okay, that's awesome. And who is the ideal or best fit for Intrepid Legal? Obviously, you work with so many industries. At what point, who's the best fit?

Speaker 3:

Well, I enjoy consumer products and manufacturing companies because they seem to have the most legal issues around them. But my current roster of clients is all over the map. I have a coaching client, I actually have a law firm that I deal with, I have a commercial door distributor, so it's kind of all over the map. But I do enjoy consumer products and manufacturing the most. Okay, and in your fractional general counsel position, what's your favorite thing to do? Well, I kind of like the contract work. I guess I'm kind of a geek, a contract geek. I. You know a lot of people look at a contract and they're like I don't want to read through that. I kind of like doing it because to me it's like putting a puzzle together and finding the missing pieces and plugging in the right pieces to help the client so they have the best decision and the best business going forward.

Speaker 2:

Excellent. Come into a business and say, like the example you gave, where they're $10 million a year and they're working on purchase orders, how do you backtrack that into a contract without you know making some friction between the company and the client?

Speaker 3:

Well, that's a really good point. I had one. This was while I was still a traditional general counsel.

Speaker 3:

I came into one company where they hadn't had any legal, internal legal advice or counsel for well over a year and every contract was negotiated by the salespeople. And nothing against salespeople I think they're great. But they were only looking to just close a deal for whatever purpose is possible, so they could gain their commissions. And so when I came in, these contracts had a lot of missing terms, Like there was no termination clauses. So the these contracts had a lot of missing terms. There were some termination clauses, so the company couldn't get out of the deal. There was just a lot of things in there that were missing. So I had to revise those contracts to help the company put in the proper terms and then renegotiate with their partners. And, like you said, it's not a fun process when you have to kind of backtrack because someone says, well, we have a contract in place, yeah, but that's not going to help, you know business going forward. So yeah it. It can be a little bit of a rocky road when you have to do something like that.

Speaker 2:

Wow. So in your, in your experience, what would you say was one of your greatest outcomes of working with a client?

Speaker 3:

Well, I think, just helping them. I have one client, the one that I mentioned, about looking at their contracts. As I started looking at their contracts, there was just a lot of things that were missing. So we've started to put things in place that are helping them move forward with their business and they don't have to worry about their contracts because they have a good template that they can use with all the various partners. They have their contracts because they have a good template that they can use with all the various partners they have and so once you put those in place, it gives them peace of mind as they move forward and work to build their business.

Speaker 2:

Okay, great. So you set them up for success by making sure everything is in place and right on board. Do you help with, like employee manuals or any of those types of compliance?

Speaker 3:

I don't, I don't. I review those and I have partners that actually do the employee road books and handbooks and things of that nature. And I do get involved in the human resources aspect of things, especially being in California where the human resources laws change very often.

Speaker 2:

I've lived in California. I absolutely agree. Wow, this has been very interesting. So you do work with law firms as well, helping them get everything together. Is there a specific type of law firm you work with?

Speaker 3:

So you know I'm kind of a corporate generalist and I have worked with. You know, general counsel, you need to rely on certain people in specialties, whether they're patent attorneys or if there's a litigation matter. I wouldn't handle a litigation matter myself, so I would go to outside counsel. So I've worked with a lot of different firms on a lot of different issues that help the corporation, and just what I do there is I help with a big cost savings because I set up budgets and make sure that the outside law firms are following their budgets. Not only that as the internal advisor to the company, I know what the mission or what the outcome and the strategy that the company wants, and I help make sure that the law firm stays on that strategy and focuses to make sure that we get to that objective.

Speaker 2:

So by bringing in Intrepid Legal, you're basically hiring a team that can help all aspects.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, absolutely. I have a very good network all over the country and I have clients outside of California, so if there's ever an issue, you know in another part of the country. I've actually also helped with some international issues as well, and sometimes you have to hire. When you're dealing internationally, I always like to rely on local counsel in the various country, because the laws can be very difficult and very country specific.

Speaker 2:

Very good. That's very interesting. I'm enjoying this whole conversation. If you were looking to, how would you let people know how you know when would be a good time? I'm trying to find a way of saying how would we know how to refer people to you.

Speaker 3:

Well, I think if you're a company that you're doing business with a lot of different parties vendors, suppliers, whatever it may be and you're doing you know $5 million in revenue or more you probably need somebody to come in and kind of look over things, whether it's compliance, contract. You know the same things. We've all talked about compliance, human resources, a lot of these companies. You talk about an employee handbook. I've had some companies that are using handbooks that are five to 10 years old, which in California.

Speaker 3:

That can be really problematic, especially if you have some type of employment lawsuit and you don't have the proper policies and procedures in place. It can be very difficult to resolve such matters and you can get yourself into a lot of trouble. Same with the contracts. So anytime you have you know. I like to say that these small business owners they don't know what they don't know, and so they can simply come in and do an evaluation of what legal issues they may have that could be on the horizon. And I try to be very proactive. Even though I'm trained as a litigator, I know that litigation is not the way that these small and medium-sized businesses should go. They should not be involved in litigation because it costs money. It costs time and resources and it's very stressful to the owners and the leadership teams.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. I mean, we're in our lane of what we do in our business and we don't you know. So we get our nose to the grindstone to grow our business and we're not really thinking about all of those things. So that's a good point of knowing it like 2 million to 5 million. You really need to start looking at those types of things and bringing a professional for that.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Well, this has been very enlightening. I've really enjoyed our conversation. I know that my listeners may wanna reach out to you or connect with you. Where can they learn more about you?

Speaker 3:

Well, I have a website it's intrepidlegalinccom and has all the information and my contact information and I'm happy to have a conversation with anyone who'd like to talk about things, and my first consultation is free and I'll charge for the first hour or so and see if someone needs me. They may need me and they may not need me today, but three or four months from now me they may need, and they may not need me today, but three or four months from now they could need somebody it'd be, yeah, it'd be nice to be able to get a starting point and see where am I, what do I need, and then when do I need it exactly okay, fantastic, this has been great.

Speaker 2:

I've learned a lot about fractional general counsel today. I really appreciate your time and I'll make sure that your contact notes are in the show notes so people can reach out to you. Thanks for joining me today for this episode. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to lawmarketingzonecom to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law podcast and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. Remember you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingzonecom. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep leading with vision and keep growing your firm.