About Us
Most companies need a lawyer far more often than they can justify hiring one. We are the legal team that carries that work, on a fixed monthly fee.
Our Firm
Standing Lawyers is a corporate and business support service. We work with companies that need a lawyer regularly rather than occasionally.
Our clients retain us on a fixed monthly fee. In return they get a legal team that knows their business, handles their ongoing legal work, and is available when a question comes up.
We are not a firm you call once a problem has happened. We are the firm that already has the file open.
Fixed monthly fee
Agreed before we begin, never billed by the hour.
Limited client intake
Capped, so the lawyer who answers knows your business.
Free 30-day pilot
Work with us for a month before you commit to a retainer.
Our Values
We take on a limited number of clients.
A retainer only works if we know your business properly and can answer when you call. That is not possible across an unlimited roster, so we cap the number of companies we act for at any one time. It means we occasionally say no to work, and it means the companies we do act for get lawyers who already have the context when something urgent lands.
Work is priced to what it takes.
We would rather quote against a realistic assessment of your workload than attach a number to a plan and hope it fits. Where the scope turns out to be different from what we expected, we say so.
We tell you when you do not need us.
Not every company needs a retainer, and not every problem needs a lawyer. Saying so costs us a fee occasionally and is the reason clients trust the advice when we do give it.
Where We Stand
Companies in India are usually offered two options, and neither of them fits.
Option one
A firm billing by the hour
The advice is capable, but the meter changes how a company behaves. People stop asking small questions because a small question costs money. Contracts get signed unreviewed because a review would mean an invoice. By the time the firm is called, the problem is no longer small.
Option two
Hiring in-house
That works well, and it is exactly right for a company at a certain size. Below that size, a full-time salary, benefits and statutory contributions are difficult to justify for work that fills a few days a week.
Standing Lawyers was set up to sit between the two. A company gets its own legal team, working continuously and at a cost it can plan for, without the hourly meter and without the headcount.
The model is not new. It is how in-house departments have always worked. We have simply made it available to companies that are not yet big enough to build one.
What We Do
Five areas. Most companies use all of them at different points in a year.
We cover the legal function of a business rather than isolated matters.
Employment Law
Everything arising from the relationship between a company and the people who work for it. That covers how people are engaged, on what terms, and under which category. It covers the policies that govern the workplace and the statutory obligations attached to them. It covers what happens when the relationship changes or ends, whether through promotion, restructuring, resignation or termination. And it covers the compliance that sits underneath all of it, from wage and working condition requirements to workplace safety and harassment prevention.
Contracts and Commercial Agreements
Every arrangement a company enters into with someone outside it. Customers, vendors, partners, landlords, licensors and contractors. We draft the agreements, review what is put in front of you, negotiate the terms that matter, and flag the ones that will cost you later. Where the same agreement recurs, we build a template so it stops needing legal attention each time.
Corporate Governance
How decisions in the company are taken, authorised and recorded. Board and shareholder processes, statutory registers and filings, constitutional documents, and the internal frameworks that determine who can commit the company to what. Done properly, this is invisible. Done badly, it surfaces during a funding round or an acquisition, at the worst possible moment.
Regulatory Compliance
The obligations a business carries by virtue of what it does and where it operates. We identify which ones apply to you, build a calendar around them, and keep it current as your business grows and the law changes. Scope depends on your sector, your footprint and your size, and it is reassessed as those change.
Legal Operations
The infrastructure beneath the legal work. Where contracts live and who can find them. How requests reach us and how quickly they come back. What gets documented and in what form. This is the difference between a company that can answer a diligence request in a week and one that spends a month reconstructing its own history.
Our Policies
Published in full, open to read before you engage us.
Enquiries
Tell us what your legal needs are.
We will read your workload, quote against it, and say plainly if a retainer is not the right arrangement for you.