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W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 29 S E P T E M B E R 2 1 , 2 0 2 6 counsel at Elsevier Inc., Rolland is laboratory director at Kennebec River Biosciences and Quinn is chief actuary at Devoted Health Medical Practice. Greater Portland Landmarks added seven trustees to its board of trustees including Kendal Anderson, Stephanie Carver, Vince DiYenno, Natalie Hill, David Hingston, Matthew Kendall and Josh Trombley. [ A C H I E V E M E N T S ] Jes Wallimann, a broker at Vitalius Real Estate Group in Portland, was named "best realtor" in the Best of Portland 2026 rankings. The Finance Authority of Maine in Augusta announced that Martha Johnston, direc- tor of education, was presented with the "Candance Johnson Vinette Award" by the Maine Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. e award is presented to an individual who has made spe- cial contributions of energy, spirit and dedication to increasing access to higher education for the citizens of Maine. Berman & Simmons, a law firm in Lewiston, said that announced three of its attorneys were recognized as Best Lawyers" in the 2027 edition of "Best Lawyers in America," a national peer-review guide, including one that was named "Lawyer of the Year." In addition, Christopher Boots was included among the "Ones to Watch in America." Health Care for Maine, a coalition of Maine-based organizations working together to ensure that every per- son in Maine has access to high- quality healthcare at a cost they can afford, recognized Gov. Janet Mills as a "Health Care Hero." VIP Tires & Service in Auburn said it was named a "Silver Arrow Award" winner by the Maine Public Relations Council for its development of the "Journeys with VIP" magazine in 2025. Bixby Chocolate in Rockland announced that six of its creations were named Grand Jury finalists in the "2026 Americas – USA Bean-to-Bar and Craft Chocolatier Competition" leading to three silver International Chocolate Award medals and one bronze medal. To submit new hires, promotions, appointments, or achievements to Mainebiz, send your press release to editorial@mainebiz.biz. Items are run at the discretion of the editorial staff, and in the order in which they were received. Most privately held companies treat legal counsel as an expense that arrives after trouble hits. A contract dispute surfaces, an employee threatens a claim, or a deal stalls in diligence, and only then does the call to outside counsel get made. By that point, options have narrowed and the cost of resolution has climbed. For a growing business, this reactive pattern is a structural disadvantage. A Fractional General Counsel is designed to solve it. What Is a Fractional General Counsel (FGC)? An FGC is an experienced attorney who serves as your company's senior legal leader on a part-time, ongoing basis. The word that matters most is ongoing. Unlike outside or retained counsel, who are engaged transaction by transaction and paid to solve discrete problems as they arise, an FGC is embedded in the business. They know your business, customers, contracts, growth plan and risk tolerance because they are a continuing part of the leadership conversation, not a specialist summoned in an emergency. An FGC is not a full-time, in-house hire. A seasoned general counsel commands a salary, benefits and equity that few companies under a certain size can justify. The fractional model delivers the same caliber of judgment and insider familiarity, scaled to the hours a mid-market company actually needs. An FGC plugged into the right law firm platform also enables seamless access to colleagues outside their scope of practice, so instead of acting as a referral conduit to unrelated outside counsel, a full-service firm's FGC program delivers uniform advice across most, if not all, matters. Integrated Leadership The defining feature of the FGC model is integration. An FGC sits with the leadership team, participates in strategic planning, attends board or executive meetings, and weighs in on day-to-day decisions, the same way a fractional CFO or COO operates. They are not consultants delivering a report and departing; they're members of the senior team who happen to serve fractionally. That presence in the room is what makes the difference. Legal issues rarely announce themselves as legal issues. They surface as a new pricing model, a new product line, a key hire, an expansion into a new state, a handshake with a strategic partner. When the company's legal leader is party to those conversations as they happen, risks are identified and addressed while still inexpensive, and the business plan can be adjusted quickly to achieve the company's goal. When legal is an outside call placed after the decision is made, the company manages consequences instead of shaping outcomes, a far more expensive approach. The Real Value: Proactive vs. Reactive System The primary value of an FGC lies in identifying and mitigating legal and regulatory risk before crises arise, aligning legal strategy with the business model rather than an independent business model reacting to legal realities. Litigation, regulatory penalties and broken deals are typically the downstream cost of decisions made without legal foresight. An FGC works upstream. Consider the areas that most often generate exposure. In contract structure, an FGC ensures customer, vendor and partnership agreements actually allocate risk as intended, rather than exposing gaps during a dispute. In corporate governance, they keep entity records, board approvals and ownership documentation in order, the things a buyer, investor or bank scrutinizes first. In employment practices, they help you classify workers correctly, draft defensible policies and handle sensitive terminations before they become claims. In regulatory compliance, they map the rules that apply to your industry and build them into operations rather than reacting to an inquiry. In exit, succession or growth planning, they spend years, not weeks, getting the house in order, so that when the opportunity comes, the deal is not derailed or slowed by unsigned contracts, missing consents, unresolved equity questions, founder arrangements or buy-sell provisions. Why It Makes Sense for the Mid-Market For a privately held company with more than $5 million in revenue and a growing workforce, the need for sophisticated legal guidance is real, but the case for a full-time general counsel often is not. That leaves a gap. Ad hoc outside counsel excels at specialized, episodic work, yet it lacks the continuity and business context to function as a true strategic advisor, and its hourly model discourages the proactive conversations that prevent problems. A full-time GC solves the continuity problem but at a cost that strains a mid-market budget and still requires ad hoc outside counsel. The FGC fills that gap precisely. You secure general counsel- level judgment, embedded and continuous, at a fraction of the fixed cost. The company pays for senior legal leadership calibrated to its actual size and pace, gaining an advisor whose incentive is to keep the business out of trouble rather than to bill for extracting it. A Natural Fit Alongside Your Other Fractional Leaders None of this is unfamiliar to companies that have already embraced fractional leadership. The fractional CFO brought financial discipline; the fractional COO brought operational rigor; the fractional CISO brought strategic protection for arguably your most valuable asset. The FGC completes the picture, adding legal and risk judgment to the same table, forming a cohesive, cost-effective leadership team that gives a growing private company the sophistication of a much larger enterprise without the overhead. For owners and executives building something durable, a Fractional General Counsel is no longer a luxury. It's simply good, prudent management. A Smarter Legal Model for Growing Companies F R A C T I O N A L G E N E R A L CO U N S E L CONTACT: Eric I. Collins, Esq., Corporate Attorney ecollins@sheehan.com / (603) 627-8266 www.sheehan.com S P O N S O R E D C O N T E N T

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