Built Inside. Applied Outside.
External Lawyers was built to provide commercially grounded, senior in-house style legal support for businesses that need more than occasional external advice, but not the overhead of a full internal legal team.
External Lawyers is led by Sophie Holt, a senior commercial lawyer with more than 17 years’ experience primarily working inside consumer-facing brands and across highly regulated industries operating in fast-paced commercial environments.
Experience spans retail, e-commerce, hospitality, travel, beauty and skincare, entertainment and other operationally complex businesses.
Counsel On-Demand
Designed for in-house legal teams that need additional support, sole counsel benefiting from a sounding board and businesses with ongoing legal needs that do not justify a full-time legal headcount.
Counsel On-Demand services involve dedicated capacity, operating as an extension of your existing team.
We intentionally limit the number of ongoing arrangements we take on at any one time.
We continue to assist businesses with strategic projects and ad-hoc legal advisory work where capacity permits.
Short-Term Counsel
Dedicated support days providing continuity during:
- projects
- leave coverage
- workload peaks
- recruitment transitions
- increased legal demand
Depending on the engagement, support can be provided on-site within the business, remotely through your existing systems or through hybrid working arrangements across Australia.
Embedded legal support reduces operational friction and pressure placed on non-legal teams to manage contract review, legal risk and decision-making during periods without dedicated in-house legal support.
Legal issues do not arise neatly once or twice a month. Ongoing counsel is designed to move with the operational rhythm of the business.