Broadly speaking, there are three ways a firm can gets its legal needs met. They can hire attorneys on a case-by-case basis. They can bring in an in-house general counsel. Or, they can work with one law firm on a regular basis as their outside general counsel.

The latter path offers several distinct advantages, not the least of which is cost. Bringing on an in-house lawyer full time may be impractical. While the business may be growing, is that growth resulting in enough residual legal issues that it justifies bringing on a well-compensated employee? The financial package offered to a good in-house lawyer will have to at least match what they can get at a top law firm, and there may not yet be enough in-house work to justify that.

The reverse extreme is dealing with legal matters on a piecemeal basis with different lawyers. Whatever is gained in cost savings is lost in terms of efficiency and knowledge. The attorney will likely need a certain amount of ramp-up knowledge, especially in an area as fluid as cryptocurrency. The client pays for the time needed to ramp up. Even at that, they are still getting legal counsel from someone who is not immersed in the daily realities of crypto law in general, and their business in particular.

Thus, we come to bringing in outside general counsel. Working with an outside firm means avoiding the additional payroll costs. Working with the same outside firm means that firm will be knowledgeable about the specific issues of their client’s business. The client can get efficient work from someone operating from the framework of familiarity.

Our reliable Miami crypto general counsel attorney can offer further benefits, including:

• General counsel can serve as an overseer of all legal work being done on the firm’s behalf. Even if other law firms are engaged with the organization, the general counsel can run point in keeping that work distributed efficiently and ensuring that billing is being done fairly.
• General counsel can offer advice to clients on proper corporate governance. As their business grows, so too may the need for additional investment. The governing structure of the operation has significant implications in the ability to attract investors. The future of the business may depend on the firmness of its governing foundation.
• If the organization is a non-profit, there are a multitude of compliance issues to keep in order. This is particularly true if the organization deals in cryptocurrency. The IRS will likely be watching closely to ensure all ingoing and outgoing currency is properly accounted for. An experienced Miami crypto general counsel lawyer will have a keen understanding of how to maintain compliance.

This underscores an important reality — while the benefits of outside general counsel are real for most companies, regardless of what currency forms they deal in, it can be of heightened importance for those organizations that have entered the crypto world.

Cryptocurrency remains an area that is very much evolving, on everything from tax law to regulatory compliance to contracts. Even the IRS and SEC are still developing as they go. In any situation that’s as ambiguous and changing as crypto can be, the most valuable person at the table may well be the person who simply has more experience dealing with these issues.