Sarah Clark, CEO of The Legal Director, explains why SMEs need proactive legal support and how fractional leadership is reshaping the way ambitious businesses access expert guidance.
LC: Why is it important for SMEs to have regular access to legal advice to support their growth?
SC: Most SMEs think about legal support reactively, when something goes wrong, when a contract needs signing, or when a dispute arises. But the businesses that grow most confidently are the ones that have legal counsel embedded in their thinking from the outset. A good GC doesn’t just manage risk; they help founders make better decisions, move faster and avoid the kind of problems that become expensive to fix later. Regular access changes the dynamic entirely. It means your lawyer understands your business, knows your ambitions and risk appetite and can give you commercially grounded advice rather than cautious, generic guidance.
LC: How does The Legal Director differ from a traditional law firm?
SC: The model is fundamentally different. We place experienced, senior General Counsels (GCs) directly inside businesses on a fractional basis. They become part of the leadership team. They’re present in board meetings, involved in strategic decisions, building relationships with the founders and the wider team. That’s very different from instructing a law firm, where you’re buying time from someone who doesn’t know your business and has no stake in your outcome. Our lawyers have all held senior in-house roles, so they bring genuine commercial judgement alongside their legal expertise. They’re not advisors at arm’s length; they’re trusted members of the team.
LC: What are your most in-demand services, have these changed in recent years, and why?
SC: Commercial contracts and employment law have always been core, but we’re seeing significant growth in demand around M&A readiness, risk register creation and AI governance. Businesses are scaling faster and at earlier stages, which means the legal complexity arrives sooner. We’re also seeing more founders who’ve had a bad experience with traditional legal support, who want something more integrated and responsive. The shift towards fractional leadership across finance, HR and marketing has created a real appetite for the same model in legal and we’ve been doing this since 2007, so we’re well placed to meet that demand.
LC: Why are partner ecosystems important enablers for SME growth?
SC: No single fractional leader can solve every problem a growing business faces. The real value comes when the people around the leadership table are connected, when your GC, your CFO and your People Director are working from the same understanding of where the business is going and what it needs. Partner ecosystems accelerate that. When we refer a client to the CFO Centre or People Puzzles, we’re not just making an introduction. We’re extending the support network around that client in a way that makes everyone more effective. Fractional leaders who collaborate closely deliver far more than the sum of their parts.
LC: How are you optimising partnerships to deliver more value to clients and grow your own business?
SC: We’ve invested significantly in building deep, reciprocal relationships with a small number of trusted partners rather than spreading ourselves thinly. The partnerships that work best are the ones where both sides genuinely understand each other’s model and client base, where referrals are made thoughtfully and followed up properly. We track referrals in both directions, and we work hard to make sure our lawyers are visible and engaged with our partner communities, not just centrally connected at the top. That’s what turns a partnership agreement into something that actually generates value for us and our clients.
LC: Why are fractional leadership solutions an important part of your partner ecosystem?
SC: Because our clients are almost always in the same position. They’re ambitious, growing fast, and not yet at the point where full-time C-suite hires across every function make sense. When a client’s CFO is fractional and their People Director is fractional, having a fractional GC alongside them creates a genuinely joined-up leadership team. We see the impact of this directly. Businesses that work with multiple fractional leaders from within a connected ecosystem make better decisions faster, because everyone is working from the same picture. That’s the real power of the model.
LC: What is your advice to founders on how to maximise value from peer networks and partner events?
SC: Show up consistently and come with something to give, not just something to get. The founders who build the most valuable networks are the ones who are generous with their insight and their time, who make introductions, share what they’ve learned and engage genuinely with the people in the room. The transactional approach rarely works. A peer network is a long-term asset, and it compounds over time. The same is true of partner relationships — the more embedded and visible you are, the more naturally opportunities flow. Don’t wait until you need something to start investing in those relationships.
The Legal Director is a Programme Partner supporting Liberti Club’s growing client community of scaling businesses, helping founders to access fractional General Counsel services and in-house legal teams. To find out more about The Legal Director, visit The Legal Director or contact [email protected].