Outside General Counsel

Dressler Peters is ready to team with your company to reach your business goals, whether or not you have an in-house legal staff or General Counsel. For complex contracts, the need to buy or sell assets, a merger or acquisition, litigation, employee disputes, regulatory matters, or just the need for additional capacity and band-width, call on Dressler Peters’ Outside General Counsel Services to help you triage, prioritize, conduct and complete all those tasks needed to allow you to stay focused on the most critical tasks at hand – running your business.

Unlike other firms, which offer generic outside general counsel services to complete standard business legal projects, Dressler Peters also offers battle-tested strategic and tactical business and legal advice for the myriad challenges you face through the expertise of our new attorney, Scott Hamilton, whose career as General Counsel, Senior Executive and Secretary for NYSE and NASDAQ public companies uniquely qualifies him to serve your business legal needs. Scott Hamilton is a highly effective, solutions-driven attorney, with broad legal and business expertise — most recently for a $1.6B NYSE listed manufacturing company — and he has broadened our client services to include services beyond conducting the specific legal task. Scott brings to your company his broad-based, in-the-trenches experience with C-suite executives and Boards of Directors facing the most complex and trying issues a company faces. He is expert in solving not just the exact legal issue but doing so in a way that achieves your business goals as well.

Whether you are experiencing a tidal wave of legal problems or simply need a hand with a discrete matter, call on Dressler Peters’ Outside Counsel Services. Our value proposition to you is that we can provide you seasoned General Counsel services from a veteran who has shared the same critical business problems you need resolved. We spot, resolve, and complete the full range of issues and projects facing your business, particularly those that might not be obvious to you.

In addition to providing expertise, support and band-width for your legal staff, Dressler Peters’ Outside General Counsel Services offers broader assistance than traditional law firms and are designed to raise the level of performance for your GC, Chief Legal Officer and legal staff to reach your business goals. GCs\CLOs must bring to the table experience in all areas of law that affect your business plus the ability to act as part of executive and business teams. Ideally, the best GCs and CLOs are not just corporate lawyers, litigators, regulatory specialists, or transaction lawyers; they must be all of these and more to be effective. In particular, your GC\CLO should have:

• Experience in the full range of corporate law, from the day-to-day corporate governance to significant transactions to M&A;
• Experience in all areas of law relevant to your business, including HR, environmental, and health and safety
• Litigation experience
• Strong negotiating skills
• Government and regulatory experience
• Business savvy
• Ability to provide practical, business-oriented advice
• Ability to assume appropriate levels of risk to achieve business goals, and
• Be a team player with a positive team-oriented attitude

Few attorneys are adept in all of these areas, because there is no training that can prepare a lawyer to serve effectively as a GC\CLO other than extensive on-the-job experience or purposeful mentorship by a seasoned general counsel. If you find that your GC and\or legal group needs assistance to rise to the next level, we at Dressler Peters stand ready to work side by side with your GC\CLO and their teams by:

• Mentoring newly-minted first time General Counsels
• Coaching legal department members to elevate individual and team performance
• Coaching in business relationships, including those between the legal group, C-Suite, and Board of Directors, and
• Strategic advice on how to maximize the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of your legal department

At Dressler Peters, we stand committed to tailoring our services to whatever form of delivery makes the most commercial and cost-effective sense for your business, whether sending our outside General Counsel to work in your offices or providing services remotely. And because Dressler Peters is a boutique firm, we can bring you this experience in a cost-effective and efficient manner. Our commitment to you is to accommodate your unique financial needs by offering the widest choice of service fee structures, from standard hourly rates to flat fees to monthly retainers or other alternative fee arrangements. We are confident that we can consistently offer you our Outside General Counsel Services at a fraction of the cost of either hiring a full-time executive-level general counsel or relying exclusively on law firm counsel.

As a successful executive, you already have plenty on your plate.To remain successful, you need to focus on the critical business issues necessary for your enterprise to thrive. At Dressler Peters, we stand ready to help you take your legal group to the next level of effectiveness.