Does My Company Really Need Legal Counsel?
How Does Cognition Work With the Law Firm We Already Use?
How Can Cognition Help With My Ongoing Legal Needs? – The General Counsel Story
How Can Cognition Help With My Ongoing Legal Needs? – The CEO/CFO Story
Why Use Cognition Instead Of A Big Law Firm?
1. “Does My Company Really Need Legal Counsel?”
An angel investor brought Cognition in when investing in a growth company which had already sold part of its business. What everyone found out, including the start-up, is that in the previous transaction it hadn’t sold exactly what it had thought. The principals were now actually employees of the purchaser and had non-compete agreements in place. The start-up worked with Cognition to clean up the original agreements and allow the start-up and the angel investor to move forward. Lesson learned: All companies need and deserve the benefit of proactive, pragmatic legal advice. Without it, you will either fail and never know the difference or succeed and find out too late that you’ve been working for someone else all along.
2. “How Does Cognition Work With the Law Firm We Already Use?”
Recently, a law firm called Cognition because its client, a SME, was simply not well served, on either a cost or regular service basis, with respect to the day to day contracts and operational legal issues which it regularly dealt with. Our lawyer went in to the client, serving as de facto in-house counsel as needed, and ended up project managing a successful divestiture which in turn involved the assistance of the referring law firm. Lesson learned: Cognition was able to provide the company with a dedicated in-house counsel resource, reduce overall legal costs both on a day to day basis and by closely managing the divestiture transaction, and forged a beneficial project outcome for both the client and the original law firm with which it had worked.
3. “How Can Cognition Help With My Ongoing Legal Needs? – The General Counsel Story”
One of our clients had just hired a new general counsel – while his team was swamped and he was trying to build a legal department to handle the demands, his headcount was frozen. He brought in a Cognition lawyer two days per week to help meet the business demands – without adding to his headcount and while staying well within budget. Now that he has built up his own legal department, our lawyer’s services have been scaled back but she frequently is called for spikes in work/demand and generally as a supplement to the department. Lesson learned: By offering only senior in-house counsel resources, we can serve as a consistent yet adaptable piece to your legal department structuring that can “hit the ground running” when and as you need us and without impinging on your own time for training and review which would defeat the whole purpose.
4. “How Can Cognition Help With My Ongoing Legal Needs? – The CEO/CFO Story”
The founders of one of our original clients had started and successfully sold a previous business in which they had a general counsel. They proceeded to co-found a new software venture, which was very contract-intensive on a business to business licensing front, and because of the lack of feasible legal alternatives available, had the CFO play legal counsel in addition to his many other roles. As recognized by the CFO himself, the result was that contracts were not only delayed but also hindered due to the lack of review and input from an experienced, business-oriented legal counsel, and dilution of the CFO’s ability and effectiveness in his own core role. Cognition came in and has served as the Company’s de facto general counsel on a varying and adaptable basis for a period of five years running, focusing on contract drafting, negotiations and management. Lesson learned: The need for business-minded legal services goes far beyond the initial incorporation and the ultimate IPO or exit transaction. Cognition counsel work to understand your business and provide you with critical day to day legal services in which the traditional law firm does not specialize and in any event cannot provide cost effectively.
5. “Why Use Cognition Instead Of A Big Law Firm?”
When a big telecommunications company goes through acquisitions, it regularly turns to Cognition for spill-over due to frozen headcount. It chooses to work with Cognition because we provide an in-house counsel approach and skill set, the consistency of the same two counsel every time and the cost benefits of being a half to a third of the cost of a traditional law firm. Thus, the existing department can focus on key special projects as they arise, and the core legal work of the company can continue seamlessly and cost-effectively. Lesson learned: There is a time and a place for traditional external legal providers, but most often what companies really need are additional in-house resources on a flexible structure and at a reasonable cost. With its level of quality, depth and industry/in-house specialization, Cognition is uniquely equipped to fill this void.