Fractional General Counsel for creative agencies and consultancies who need clarity, speed, and predictable legal spend.
Legal Infrastructure for Businesses That Are Scaling
Harbor & Main operates as your Outside General Counsel (OGC), not a vendor on a meter. Schedule a consultation to discuss how we can support your business.
Outsourced General Counsel serving Naperville and Chicago
Why Fractional General Counsel
Our Services
We handle the following matters for our clients.
Your contracts should scale as fast as your revenue.
We design and manage:
- Master Service Agreements (MSAs)
- Statements of Work (SOWs)
- Client, vendor, and partnership agreements
Clean structure. Clear risk allocation. Fewer deal slowdowns.
Creative work doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
Ownership, usage rights, and liability now evolve as fast as the work itself.
We help you:
- Establish clear ownership across all creative output
- Protect and grow your intellectual property portfolio
- Define rights and responsibilities for AI-assisted and human-created work
- Reduce exposure in client-facing deliverables and downstream use
Practical, forward-looking intellectual property support—built for how work is actually created in 2026.
Growth creates complexity.
People, contractors, policies, pressure.
We support:We support:
- Independent contractor and employee structures
- Offer letters, policies, and terminations
- Risk mitigation as teams scale
So leadership can move decisively without stepping on landmines.
Corporate Governance
Growth creates responsibility.
Boards, investors, decisions, documentation.
We support:
- Board and leadership governance structures
- Resolutions, consents, and strategic approvals
- Legal guidance tied to executive decision-making
So leadership can move forward with clarity and accountability.
Growth creates value—and risk.
Ownership interests, family dynamics, succession questions, tax exposure.
We support:
Integrated estate plans aligned with business ownership and control
Succession and continuity planning for closely held businesses
Trusts, wills, and powers of attorney tailored to active owners
Coordination with operating agreements and buy-sell arrangements
So your business continues, your family is protected, and decisions are made on your terms—not by default law or the probate court.
Scalable Legal Infrastructure
Legal shouldn’t live in inboxes and one-off documents.
We build systems:
- Playbooks for repeat decisions
- Deal structures your team understands
- Legal workflows that keep pace with growth
Less friction. More momentum.
The Naperville & Chicago Advantage
We’re built for Illinois-based firms operating nationally. Naperville access. Chicago deal fluency. Midwest practicality with global awareness. Local when it matters. Strategic everywhere.
BEYOND THE BILLABLE HOUR
Legal Strategy Grounded in Policy, People, and Performance
Harbor & Main is built for leaders who want legal guidance that reflects how institutions actually function not how textbooks describe them. Our work sits at the intersection of Strategic Infrastructure, real-world operations, and long-term performance.
Public Policy Precision
Regulatory Navigation with Context
Most firms interpret statutes in isolation.
We look upstream.
With a public policy foundation, we understand the policy engines behind regulation, how incentives are designed, how enforcement priorities shift, and where discretion actually lives.
That perspective allows us to:
- Anticipate regulatory direction, not just react to rules
- Translate complex regulation into operational decisions
- Guide businesses through Regulatory Navigation with fewer surprises
This isn’t legal theory. It’s applied policy intelligence.
Restorative Infrastructure
Conflict Transformation Inside the Organization
Human risk stalls more agencies than legal risk ever will.
We apply restorative justice principles to employment and internal governance systems focusing on accountability, clarity, and repair before conflict escalates.
The result:
- Fewer breakdowns between leadership and teams
- Clear expectations without punitive overreach
- Conflict Transformation that supports retention and performance
Strong systems reduce friction. Calm organizations move faster.
Institutional-Grade Compliance
Built to Withstand Scrutiny from Day One
We bring the rigor of multi-million-dollar grant and institutional compliance into private-sector operations.
That means:
- MSAs and SOWs structured like systems, not documents
- Controls that are audit-ready from the start
- Compliance that scales with growth instead of lagging behind it
This is Strategic Infrastructure designed for longevity, not cleanup.
No sales pitch. No long memo. Just a focused conversation.
In a complimentary 30-minute consultation, we identify:
- Where legal friction is slowing you down
- What’s creating hidden risk
- Whether a fixed-fee OGC model actually fits your business