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Outside General Counsel Services

Trusted. Your first call.

Sometimes the C-suite in small to medium-sized companies can be a lonely place. Owners and decision makers need trusted business advisors to act as their consiglieres and go-to problem solvers — someone highly responsive, practical and focused on getting them to “yes.” Our Outside General Counsel (OGC) Services team members invest time to deeply understand each client’s business to earn their trust and build lasting relationships with their leadership team.

As outside advisors to your team operating as “deep generalists,” we strive to counsel each client from a place of trust and common understanding, with a keen understanding of your “risk appetite” and a perspective recognizing the opportunities and competitive dynamics endemic to your industry. Our approach not only enhances trust and practical advisory services; it also creates greater efficiencies in advising you on navigating potential roadblocks and achieving key strategic objectives driving the company’s success.

A trusted legal advisor is an essential asset and competitive edge for growing businesses.

Many growing companies inevitably outgrow their outside lawyers, reaching a point where the lack of responsiveness, status quo thinking, and most attorneys’ extremely low risk tolerance (contrary to most of their clients’ risk appetites) becomes an impediment to, rather than a facilitator of, the growth of the business. Our OGC attorneys differentiate themselves from the prevailing lawyer paradigm by being:

  • Strategic in focus.
  • Proactive in identifying risks and opportunities.
  • Getting our clients to “yes” in equipping and empowering business operations.
  • Identifying and leveraging risks for opportunity, not just focusing on eliminating or reducing all risks.
  • Regularly acting as a trusted business advisor, not just an outside legal specialist that you sporadically contact for various transactions.

The OGC approach emphasizes and hinges on the deep, trusting relationships we continue to forge with our clients. Our OGC attorneys invest significant non-billable time upfront, building a strong relationship with your team and a deep understanding of your business’s challenges and opportunities. We help diagnose the potential problem/opportunity and then provide timely access to our firm’s deep bench of legal specialists, who will assist in providing pragmatic advice, along with practical tools and resources to address and resolve dynamic issues. This ensures that we never “learn on your dime” and meet your deadlines for advice and work product.

Outside General Counsel Team

Get a fresh, informed perspective on your business. Connect with a OGC team member today

  • Beth Schneider Naylor Profile Image
    Beth Schneider Naylor

    Partner

    Cincinnati, OH

  • E. Todd Wilkowski Profile Image
    E. Todd Wilkowski

    Partner

    West Chester, OH

  • Mekesha H. Montgomery Profile Image
    Mekesha H. Montgomery

    Industry Team Leader

    Nashville, TN

  • Eric J. Beecher Profile Image
    Eric J. Beecher

    Senior Associate

    Cincinnati, OH

    West Chester, OH

  • Gregory S. Shumate Profile Image
    Gregory S. Shumate

    Office Partner-in-Charge

    Florence, KY

  • Maureen A. Bickley Profile Image
    Maureen A. Bickley

    Vice Office Partner-in-Charge

    Cincinnati, OH

  • Courtney Gahm-Oldham Photo
    Courtney B. Gahm-Oldham

    Partner

    Houston, TX

  • Jordan S. Blask Profile Image
    Jordan S. Blask

    Office Partner-in-Charge

    Pittsburgh, PA

  • Brian Cooper
    Brian Michael Cooper

    Partner

    Houston, TX

  • Yazan S. Ashrawi Profile Image
    Yazan S. Ashrawi

    Office Partner-in-Charge

    Columbus, OH

  • Kelly W. Schulz Profile Image
    Kelly W. Schulz

    Partner

    Louisville, KY

  • Alan S. Meek Profile Image
    Alan S. Meek

    Partner

    Lexington, KY

  • Lucas T. Elliot Profile Image
    Lucas T. Elliot

    Partner

    Nashville, TN

    Houston, TX

  • Jared M. Tully Profile Image
    Jared M. Tully

    Practice Group Vice-Chair

    Charleston, WV

  • Edward W. Moore, Jr. Profile Image
    Edward W. Moore, Jr.

    Office Partner-in-Charge

    Dallas, TX

  • Katie Capito
    Katherine Brings Capito

    Partner

    Charleston, WV

Unique Value Proposition

We do more than simply address your legal needs through our unique "Get to Yes" approach.

Leveraging Risk

Risk is associated with every move your business makes. We will assist you as you grow in thinking about how to achieve your growth objectives while leveraging (not just reducing or eliminating) risk. Compared with some legal advisors who are adept at saying “no” and primarily tell their clients why they shouldn’t engage in a particular business activity, we understand risk correlates to reward and is a necessary element for increased profitability and growth. We’re not intimidated by risk; however, we prefer calculated risk that can be leveraged to allow for additional opportunity and sustainable growth. We listen to your desired objectives and focus on “getting you to yes” to empower your business.

We know that a company’s growth requires hiring and retaining new talent, acquiring strategic targets, and expanding into new markets with new products and customers. We, along with our firm’s industry teams, are committed to helping you and your team identify and leverage the most profitable or damaging risks associated with any move your company contemplates. This allows us to better assist you in developing processes and strategies to overcome roadblocks and continue progress toward sustained, profitable growth.

Strategic, Big Picture Perspective

Many of our OGC team members have regularly counseled and/or served in companies’ executive leadership teams across a variety of industries. We function as “deep generalists,” operating from a strategic viewpoint needed to diagnose a wide range of potential issues. We also appreciate the dynamic daily changes, “fire drills,” and opportunities inherent in running a business and can quickly and strategically assess how one apparently isolated decision can significantly impact the company’s overall operations.

Our OGC team brings both passion and an avowed commitment to only providing value-added advice and services that empower, not impede, your strategic growth and development objectives. We never learn on your dime. Rather, we invest the time to understand the business, identify areas where we can add value, and only start the clock when providing actionable legal advice or resources.

Act, Do Not React

Our OGC attorneys are proactive, not reactive, problem solvers that work collaboratively with your team to develop customized and readily implementable solutions based on years of experience in creatively advising businesses in entrepreneurial and high-growth industries. We see a lot of deals and are exposed to lessons learned/best practices with myriad clients, and we share that experience with you. Foremost, we are resourceful and determined in helping you achieve your goals—with the requisite skills and foresight, honed through experience—to help you vet important decisions and ensure that all potential positive and adverse impacts are factored into the decision calculus.

Rich Resources

Our OGC team is a cross-practice group that contains former general counsel/chief legal officers, senior-level in-house counsel, and other talented lawyers who operate from a common paradigm: we focus on being “a businessperson that happened to go to law school,” not the kind of lawyer who cannot see the big picture or is overly obsessed with risk to the detriment of sustainable growth. You will have ready access to a tremendously talented and deep bench in our firm, including more than 500 legal specialists (many with a focus on specific industries) across nine states and Washington, D.C., as well as an established outside network of trusted advisors in all disciplines. Should an issue warrant supplemental support, we can engage these specialists to timely and effectively deliver practical, tried and true value-added advice and outstanding “ready to use” work product.

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