Services

Part-Time General or Intellectual Property Counsel

Legal expertise that grows with your company.

Successful startup companies need legal guidance, and want someone who really understands their business, but often don’t have enough work or budget for a full-time in-house lawyer. That’s where we come in. In your early stages, we can partner with your start-up, working with you part-time to meet your needs – two hours a week, one day a month, or variable as your needs change. As you grow, we ramp up with you to meet your expanding legal needs.

Established companies of different sizes often have in-house counsel, but occasionally need some extra help, but not enough to make a full-time hire. We can help bridge those gaps as your legal needs expand and contract.

We work with you to find the arrangement that works best for your company. Our options include:

Part-time general counsel: As founders of a startup law firm, we are adept with operations, employment, contract negotiations and drafting, lease negotiations, and the miscellaneous legal issues growing companies encounter. We understand the lean startup environment, the need to move quickly, and paving the way forward rather than creating barriers. If you are not yet ready to hire a full-time GC, we can assist as your part-time GC, including support such as:

  • Development and implementation of document retention and employment policies and agreements
  • Non-disclosure agreement negotiation and tracking
  • Navigating confidentiality issues
  • Third party relationships, with partners, providers, and contractors
  • Open source issues
  • Contract negotiation and drafting
  • Intellectual property identification, protection, and strategic use
  • Best practices

Part-time IP counsel: we oversee your outside patent and trademark lawyers and ensure your IP is moving in a focused and deliberate direction. We perform technical scrubs, talking to the technical teams to ensure that IP is not missed. We interface with your business teams to ensure the IP being pursued supports their business goals and adds value. Areas we can assist include:

  • Patent and trade secret program development and implementation
  • Invention identification and refinement
  • Patent program development and oversight
  • Patent and Trademark application drafting and prosecution
  • IP due diligence for investments or acquisitions
  • Branding / trademark / marketing support, monitoring and enforcement

Give us a call to explore how we can partner with you as your company grows.

"[T]here’s plenty of room for innovative, service-oriented firms… [HIPLegal’s] got an interesting value proposition. They’ve got the in-house perspective, a patent prosecutor and a litigator, which is a nice combination of skill sets. " Peter Zeughauser, The Recorder, May 13, 2014, “Trio of IP Lawyers Launch Boutique Aimed at Startups”