How Do You Hire the Right Fractional Chief Legal Officer?

A fractional Chief Legal Officer, also called a fractional general counsel, is an experienced in-house attorney who works for your company part-time, usually 20 to 80 hours a month, instead of as a full-time employee. The fractional CLO manages contracts, compliance, legal risk, and outside counsel, giving growing companies in-house legal leadership at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire.

Fractional Chief Legal Officer engagements typically cost $5,000 to $25,000 per month, depending on hours, practice areas, and regulatory complexity. Experienced fractional general counsel usually bill $200 to $500 per hour. For context, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median pay of $159,670 a year for lawyers in May 2025. Frontline scopes each engagement on a discovery call and sends a written proposal with no hidden fees. Frontline's placement fees are published at frontlinesourcegroup.com/pricing.html.

Hire a fractional CLO when legal work has become a regular part of running the business but a full-time general counsel is not yet justified. Common triggers include rising outside counsel bills, contracts slowing down deals, capital raises or acquisitions, expansion into regulated markets, and covering a general counsel vacancy during a search.

A general counsel is the company's top lawyer and owns the legal work itself: contracts, compliance, disputes, and managing outside counsel. A Chief Legal Officer sits on the executive team and adds legal strategy, risk oversight, corporate governance, and board reporting to that work. Many companies give one attorney both titles, and some larger companies split the roles, with the general counsel reporting to the CLO. In a growing company, one fractional attorney usually covers both: setting legal strategy with the CEO and handling day-to-day legal work. Frontline places fractional, interim, and full-time attorneys for either title.

An outside law firm handles specific matters and bills by the hour. A fractional CLO knows your business, handles routine legal work directly, and decides when outside counsel is needed, which often lowers total legal spend. Most companies still use outside firms for litigation and specialized matters, managed by their fractional CLO.

In many cases, yes. A fractional CLO handles routine contracts and questions in-house, negotiates fees with outside firms, sends work to the right firm, and stops duplicate or unnecessary billing.

Most fractional Chief Legal Officers work 20 to 80 hours a month and scale up during transactions, audits, or disputes. Most legal work can be done remotely, and Frontline matches you with an attorney near one of its 32+ offices when on-site time matters, or with a remote attorney licensed in the right jurisdiction.

Every fractional CLO in the Frontline network goes through bar standing verification, screening on in-house experience, practice areas, and business judgment, a case interview on real legal scenarios, reference checks with prior executives or boards, and a background check before meeting a client.

Fractional CLO placements are led by Shelly Hubble, CSP, Senior Vice President of Operations, and Bill Kasko, Founder, President, and CEO, working with Cassidy Jacobs, Senior Executive Staffing Specialist, whose coverage includes legal recruiting. Their bios are at frontlinesourcegroup.com/shelly-hubble-staffing-services.html, frontlinesourcegroup.com/bill-kasko-staffing-services.html, and frontlinesourcegroup.com/cassidy-jacobs-professional-staffing-agency.html.

Yes. You can convert your fractional CLO to a permanent, full-time hire at any point. Frontline handles the transition as a direct hire placement, and the hire is covered by the 5-Year Placement Warranty, which is 20 times longer than the 90-day industry standard. Details are at frontlinesourcegroup.com/5year-placement-guarantee.html.

Tell your Frontline account manager. Frontline reviews every engagement monthly, and if the fit is not right, Frontline presents a replacement slate of vetted attorneys at no added fee so your legal work keeps moving.

Frontline is an executive search firm founded in 2004, so it vets attorneys the way it vets permanent executives, lets you choose from a slate, and lets you hire your CLO full-time with a 5-Year Placement Warranty. Frontline has completed 5,619 placements with a 98.94% executive placement retention rate, holds a 5.0-star Trustpilot rating across 682 verified reviews, and has been on the Forbes Best Professional Recruiting Firms list for 9 consecutive years. Frontline is a staffing and executive search firm, not a law firm, and does not provide legal advice. To get started, request an executive at frontlinesourcegroup.com/employer-request-form.html.