Outside General Counsel for Energy, Oil & Gas, and Mining Companies

The hidden cost of having no general counsel

So the real question is not whether you can afford a legal department. It is why you are paying more than a legal department would cost and getting less. Right now, the legal work is still happening at your company — it is just scattered in the most expensive and unpredictable way possible. Here is where it quietly costs you:

• You are the general counsel. The founder, CEO or CFO handles legal — the most expensive person in the building, pulled off the work that grows the company.
• Hourly lawyers who do not know you. $400 to $700 an hour, unpredictable bills, and you re-explain your business every time.
• Contracts signed without real review. JOAs, MSAs, offtake, supply, leases and permits — each unreviewed one is a dispute waiting to happen.
• Deals that stall. Financings and negotiations lose momentum because no counsel is on hand at the moment it matters.
• Risk building in silence. Regulatory, HSE, environmental and local-content exposure accumulates with no one watching it full-time.
• No one steering outside counsel. Specialist firms bill freely because nobody inside is managing scope, strategy or spend.

A senior legal department, for a fraction of the cost

Building the function in-house is expensive. A general counsel alone typically costs $350,000 to $600,000 a year once you add bonus, benefits, office and software, and a small department with a paralegal and legal operations runs past $1 million a year — before anyone has reviewed a single contract. And it takes months to recruit.

Our outside general counsel runs from $3,500 to $10,500 a month — roughly $42,000 to $126,000 a year — for a senior energy and mining lawyer, a whole firm's bench behind them, and cross-border reach built in. Most clients save $250,000 to $900,000 a year for the same function, available the day they start, with a predictable monthly fee and no headcount to carry. The need does not grow in a straight line, so the service scales up or down as your year does.

If this makes you think “we should have done this years ago” — you are exactly right.

What your outsourced legal department covers each month

You get one team that knows your company and holds the whole picture — not a different stranger for every question. Depending on your tier, your outside general counsel covers:

• Contracts. Reviewing, drafting and negotiating MSAs, JOAs, offtake and supply agreements, services contracts and leases — the day-to-day work of our contract and oil and gas practices, now on call.
• Corporate and governance. Entity housekeeping, board and shareholder matters, resolutions and policies, working with our company formation and structuring team.
• Cross-border transactions. Joint ventures, consortiums, financings and Africa–U.S. deals, structured for the legal systems they will actually live under.
• Regulatory, compliance and HSE. Ongoing advisory on regulatory, environmental, health-and-safety and local-content exposure, plus sanctions and anti-corruption awareness.
• Employment and day-to-day counsel. Offer letters, contractor agreements, confidentiality and the ordinary legal questions that come up every week, including business immigration and mobility of key people.
• Dispute triage. Early assessment of threats and claims, demand letters and settlement strategy, engaging and directing litigation counsel where a matter goes to court.
• Managing all your outside counsel. We select, instruct, coordinate and supervise specialist and local counsel so scope, strategy and spend stay under control — one point of accountability.

One team across every border

Kachikwu & Nama Law Firm is licensed in Texas. We provide U.S. and cross-border legal counsel and coordinate trusted local counsel in the jurisdictions where you operate. You get one legal team: for any matter governed by local law abroad — including court proceedings and local filings — we engage and direct qualified in-country counsel on your behalf, and manage them to our standard.

For a small energy or mining company juggling Texas, Nigeria, Gabon and the Gulf, that single point of accountability is worth more than any promise to do everything in-house — it is a legal department that works across borders, so you do not have to find, vet and manage lawyers in five countries. We never state or imply that the firm is licensed, or appears in court, in a jurisdiction where it is not admitted; where local law governs, local counsel we engage performs that work.

Choose your level — only pay for what you need

Three monthly packages, plus separately scoped project work. Every engagement starts with a clear written scope and a flat fee, so there are no surprises.

Fees shown are representative packages. Actual scope and fees are set by a written engagement, and the monthly fee is held and earned in line with Texas rules on attorney fees and trust accounting.

Why Kachikwu & Nama

Not a generalist — your industry. More than 25 years across oil, gas, energy and natural-resource transactions mean we already know the agreements and the regulators you actually face. This is a subscription legal department built for energy and mining, not a general business firm adding a retainer.

Cross-border reach. The United States, Africa and the Middle East under one roof, with trusted local counsel where you operate, so one team can run your legal work across several countries at once.

Leadership that opens doors. The service is led by Georges C. Nama, Esq., a Texas business and energy lawyer and member of the Association of International Energy Negotiators (AIEN), with Prof. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu — former Nigerian Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and former President of OPEC — bringing energy and investment depth to the matters that need it.

Beyond energy and mining

Energy, oil & gas and mining are where our experience runs deepest — but the outside-GC model fits any growing company that has outgrown ad-hoc legal and isn’t ready for a full-time department. We serve businesses across:

• Import/export & international trade
• Agriculture & agribusiness
• Transportation, aviation & logistics
• Manufacturing & construction
• Technology & professional services
• and other growth-stage companies

If your company signs contracts, hires people, and faces regulators, you already have a legal department’s worth of work — and we can be that department.

Official sources: State Bar of Texas · Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct · Association of International Energy Negotiators (AIEN)

This page provides general information, not legal advice. Every situation depends on its facts. Contacting the firm does not create an attorney-client relationship.