How tech and life sciences companies should hire legal leaders for growth

High-growth companies rarely need the same legal function for long. 

A technology startup may initially need support with intellectual property and commercial contracts before enterprise growth, AI adoption or international expansion changes the legal brief. A life sciences company may move from fundraising and IP protection into clinical development, licensing and commercialization. 

The challenge is recognising when legal complexity has become a leadership issue, and hiring a General Counsel (GC) with experience of the stage the business is about to enter, not the one it has just left. 

How to know it is time for a General Counsel

There is no universal revenue, funding or headcount threshold at which a company needs a GC. A better indicator is how often legal complexity is beginning to influence important business decisions. 

For technology companies, common triggers include: 

• Moving into enterprise sales 
• Introducing AI into products or services 
• Expanding internationally 
• Increasing data privacy, cybersecurity or IP requirements 

For life sciences companies, the triggers are different: 

• Reaching new clinical or regulatory milestones 
• Completing a funding round 
• Entering licensing or strategic partnerships 
• Moving towards commercialization 

While the triggers differ, the underlying challenge is the same: legal is becoming more central to commercial decision-making. When that happens, senior legal leadership becomes a strategic requirement rather than an operational one. 

 
In both sectors, increasing outside counsel spend, executives handling legal issues themselves or legal advice arriving too late in decision-making can indicate that the business has outgrown its existing approach. 

Tech and life sciences require different legal leadership

Sector expertise matters. But for high-growth companies, experience of the next growth stage is often the better predictor of success.

Technology: legal is moving closer to product

For high-growth tech companies, legal questions are increasingly embedded in the product itself. 

An AI company selling to enterprise customers may need to address data use, IP ownership, privacy, cybersecurity and contractual liability simultaneously. Legal leaders therefore need to understand the technology and business model well enough to identify risk without unnecessarily slowing development or sales. 

As AI governance develops, the GC may also need to work more closely with product, engineering, security and privacy teams. This reflects wider changes in how M&A and AI are influencing US in-house legal hiring, with companies increasingly looking for legal professionals who can respond to new technology and evolving business needs. 

Life sciences: the brief changes with the development cycle

In life sciences, legal requirements can change significantly as a company progresses. 

An early-stage biotech may focus on intellectual property, venture capital financing and corporate governance. Clinical development introduces different regulatory, contracting and partnership requirements, while M&A can create further demand for experienced General Counsel talent as the business grows. Commercialization changes the brief again. 

This makes hiring for where the company is going particularly important. Someone with extensive pharmaceutical experience may not necessarily have built a legal function in an emerging company. Equally, a lawyer experienced in early-stage biotech may never have supported commercialization. 

The key question is not whether a candidate has worked in your sector. It is whether they have successfully navigated the stage your business is about to enter.

The first legal leader needs to know what to build

Hiring a GC does not mean recreating the legal department of a large public company. 

One of the most valuable skills in an early legal leader is knowing how much legal infrastructure the business actually needs and how to build the right in-house legal team around it. 

A strong first legal leader should know what to: 

• Bring in-house: recurring work where internal knowledge adds value 
• Keep external: specialist matters requiring specific expertise 
• Standardise or automate: repeatable contracting, approvals or legal intake 
• Build next: capabilities and headcount required as the company grows 

A SaaS company repeatedly negotiating enterprise agreements, for example, may benefit from bringing commercial legal capability in-house. A biotech approaching a specialist regulatory milestone may still get greater value from external counsel. 

The goal is not to build the biggest legal team. It is to build the right one. 

Hire for the next stage, not today’s problem

One common hiring mistake is allowing the immediate legal challenge to define the entire role. 

A company overwhelmed by contracts may recruit a commercial specialist. But if the next two years include international expansion, M&A or an IPO, that brief could quickly become too narrow. 

Just as importantly, businesses need to decide whether they are hiring a builder or an operator. Many first-time GC hires struggle not because they lack expertise, but because they are suited to a different stage of growth. 
 
A builder is comfortable creating processes, managing outside counsel and working with limited infrastructure. An operator may be better suited to leading an established legal function with existing teams and systems. 

Neither is better. What matters is matching the legal leader to the company’s stage. 

When interviewing, employers can test this directly:

• What did you build in your previous legal function? 
• What did you bring in-house and what remained external? 
• How did the legal function change as the company grew? 
• What would you prioritise here based on our growth plans? 

These questions help distinguish candidates who have worked in growing companies from those who have actually helped lead them through change. 

Legal leadership needs to match the business ahead

The expectations of legal leaders are changing because the businesses they support are changing. 

The strongest candidate is rarely the lawyer best suited to today’s challenges alone. More often, it is the person who has already navigated the complexity the business expects to face in the next three to five years. 

For high-growth technology and life sciences companies, hiring a General Counsel is not simply about adding legal expertise. It is about bringing in leadership capable of supporting the next phase of growth. 

For businesses navigating this decision, specialist in-house legal recruitment expertise can help shape the brief and identify leaders with the right experience for the company’s next stage of growth.