Strategic legal support where you need it most

I'm Katie Selves, a fractional General Counsel and legal consultant.

I provide senior employment, commercial and HR advice to ambitious employers across all sectors, and work with founder-led recruitment businesses as their on-call legal partner.

Pragmatic, commercially-minded, and built around how growing businesses actually work, not how lawyers think they should.

Fractional GC
Legal Services

Which best describes you?

I’m a HR consultant

You need a lawyer who complements your services, not competes with them, giving you the confidence to tackle even the trickiest issues for your clients.

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I run a recruitment business

You need a lawyer who understands the recruitment sector inside out: IR35, AWR, contractor disputes, restrictive covenants, candidate and client contracts, M&A and exits.

You want a trusted advisor who understands your business without the cost of a full-time hire.

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I’m a business founder or leader

You need a lawyer on hand for the issues every employer faces: managing people well, getting your contracts right, staying on top of risk without the cost of a full-time hire or the friction of a traditional firm.

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Why work with me?

With over twenty years across private practice, in-house legal leadership, and executive roles, I've sat on the board, run the legal function, and led teams through investment, acquisition, restructure, and growth. I also hold a CIPD Level 7 in HR and an Executive MBA, which means I bring a genuinely commercial lens to legal questions.

What that means in practice:

  • Commercial first. Legal advice is only useful if you can act on it. I give you a clear view of the risk and the call you need to make, not a hedge-everything memo.

  • Embedded, not external. I work as part of your team. I learn your business, your people, and your priorities so the advice fits the situation.

  • Senior, every time. You get me. You don't get handed off to a junior associate or routed through a partner you've never met.

  • Flexible to your stage. Retained monthly, project-based, or ad-hoc, whichever matches what you actually need.

A woman with shoulder-length light brown hair, wearing a beige sweater, smiling gently while leaning against a white wall in a well-lit indoor setting.

The difference this makes…

Most of my clients come to me with the same underlying problem: people issues, contracts and legal risk are eating into the time they should be spending running their business. Managers feel out of their depth on tricky people decisions. Difficult conversations (exits, performance, grievances) sit on the to-do list because nobody wants to handle them badly.

Here's what changes when I'm in your corner:

Founders get their time and headspace back

You stop being the person who has to think about contracts, exits, and HR fires. You get on with the things only you can do: running and growing the business.

Your managers gain confidence

They stop second-guessing themselves on people decisions, because they have a senior advisor on call, and the answer they get is clear, commercial, and something they can act on.

The stressful stuff gets handled properly

Grievances, performance issues, senior exits, etc… the things that disrupt your week and cost you sleep get dealt with calmly, professionally, and in a way that protects the business.

And the value compounds

I don't just give you the answer, I mentor your managers through the reasoning. Next time a similar situation lands, they already know how to handle it. Your reliance on legal advice goes down over time, not up.

  • "Katie is highly knowledgeable, commercially astute, and incredibly efficient. She quickly understands the nuances of our business and consistently delivers advice that is both practical and strategically valuable."

  • "I have worked with Katie on a range of employment and commercial matters and have always been impressed by her pragmatic, commercially focused advice."

  • "Katie's extensive recruitment and commercial background shines through in every interaction, bringing a level of insight and professionalism that is genuinely rare."

  • "Unlike many lawyers who take a purely theoretical approach, Katie draws on real-world experience, which means she truly understands the pressures businesses face and the need for practical, workable solutions."

Let’s talk

Tell me about your business and what's on your plate.

A 30-minute conversation is the fastest way to work out whether and how I can help, with no pressure to take it further.