Innovative.
Immersive.
Efficient.
Your Need
Startups
You are overwhelmed with basic needs, but cannot settle for cookie-cutter forms or little to no personal engagement for your critical legal and business questions.
Growth Stage Companies
Your business is changing its space—or creating a new one. You are rapidly developing dynamic commercial partnerships that outside attorneys are either too specialized or too expensive to focus on. You need continuing, pro-active counsel, but not quite full-time.
Larger Enterprises
When your team is overwhelmed due to absence or extreme activity, you cannot afford to babysit a temp, but a large firm’s hourly rates are simply not feasible. You require commercial support that is seamless, experienced and reasonable.
Private Equity/VC
Your diligence or active asset management requires an in-house legal perspective that cuts to the business implications of your existing legal analysis.
OUR Solution
VirtualGC offers business-integrated, pro-active counsel via a variety of flexible structures. We generally avoid hourly rates and instead prefer flat, transactional or recurring fees, with potential success incentives. At our core, we seek to partner with a select group of dynamic, growing enterprises, helping them bridge to larger scale.
Core Competencies
BRAND Licensing
Business development
corporate Formation & governance
Capital Raising (all levels)
Content Acquisition & Licensing
general counsel
HOSPITALITY, FOOD AND BEVERAGE
intellectual Property
Internet, Social Media, Privacy
joint ventures, partnerships
Litigation strategy and support
Negotiations, Commercial Contracts
Mergers & Acquisitions
REAL Estate
Values
Our network of seasoned attorneys here at VirtualGC all share in-house experience and the following values:
Entrepreneurial
We immerse ourselves in
understanding your business and core objectives.
EFFICIENT
Adding value is our prime objective. We take
pride in the speed and efficiency of our action.
Proactive
We engage deeply. Whether attending board
meetings, reviewing wireframes or term sheets, we help you structure things correctly, the first time.
Humble
We understand what we don’t understand.
If additional outside specialists are needed, we'll
tell you and can often suggest a highly curated provider.
Candid
Smart leaders don’t seek out yes-men/women
and we are not that.
Fun
A well timed joke has been known to change a negotiation. We try to enjoy what we do and work best with clients who do too.
Services
Virtual General Counsel
This means exactly what it states. Our attorneys understand your business, help you brainstorm, iterate, develop and grow. Like a full-time GC, a VGC quarterbacks your legal issues, alleviates management stress and facilitates solutions.
This can start transactionally, on-demand but often extends to dedicated, recurring support and can even include our attorney retaining an email within your domain.
Enterprise Support
When your team is overwhelmed or understaffed for any reason, we can provide a senior attorney with in-house experience in your field to seamlessly step in and assume deal support. Both the attorney and fee structure will be suited to your organizational needs.
Private Equity/Consulting
We can quickly add a unique consultative perspective to commercial diligence for potential acquisitions and investments. Public companies and private equity shops have used us to add a business-focused legal synopsis layer to their traditional diligence reports.
Clients
Client selection is a two-way process for us – we only work with enterprises and individuals that align with our values and that we believe that we can add significant value to.
Current and past clients of VirtualGC have operated in the following arenas:
Automotive
B2B Platforms
Cannabis
Consumer Products
Creative Agencies
Crowdfunding
e-commerce; mobile
fashion
Food & Beverage
hospitality
influencers
manufacturing
Private Equity
Real estate
Saas
video/music content
Wearables
WINERIES
About US
VirtualGC is led by its partners Avery Kotler, Brandt Mori and Jim Greeley. Together with a lean team of supporting personnel, VGC operates on the proposition that outside counsel can and should function with the same business engagement and efficiency as the best in-house groups. With collective decades of in-house (large and small cap), firm and solo practice, VGC is uniquely positioned to understand your business objectives and marry them with appropriate legal frameworks.
VirtualGC additionally manages an on-demand network of legal, financial and other experienced professionals that can be made available to complement our core team. All of our partners share a common background that includes material in-house and/or direct business experience and a dedication to practicing in accordance with our values. In all cases, individuals are only selected based on a direct fit for the client and the matter at hand.
AVERY B. KOTLER, ESQ., founding PRINCIPAL
Avery Kotler has provided experienced, general counsel to a diverse group of companies focused on the digital and entertainment spheres, with particular expertise in developing new partnership and revenue centers for enterprises of any size. Avery formed VirtualGC in late 2016 with the intent of changing the way that outside legal services can be provided.
After graduating from Georgetown Law, Avery began his legal career in in 1998 as an Associate at Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts (now Pillsbury Winthrop), where he helped to found a new department to support emerging companies and technologies. His experience included everything from initial formation advice to IPO support. He went on to hold in-house positions, first at pressplay, a joint venture of Sony and Universal Music. He moved on to become Vice President of Business & Legal Affairs at Napster, which he helped to re-launch as a legal digital music service and then at Best Buy, where he led the legal support team for its $4+ Billion Entertainment Division. Avery sits on several startup advisory boards as well as the board of trustees for the Hannah Senesh Community Day School.
Avery also helped to found Hospitality for Family and Friends, a not-for-profit that offers free hotel rooms to visiting relatives of pediatric cancer patients. He currently sits on its board and is passionately committed to further expanding its message and reach. Avery lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two boys where he can often be found organizing block parties, playing street hockey with his boys or tending to his backyard vegetable “kibbutz”.
Contact Avery
avery@virtualgc.com
BranDt Mori, ESQ., Principal
Brandt Mori is an experienced corporate attorney and General Counsel who advises clients through their entire business lifecycle, focusing on business formation, JVs, M&A, private equity and venture capital and financing transactions; complex commercial agreements; and corporate governance and compliance.
Brandt joined VirtualGC following a successful tenure at Venable LLP where he became a partner in the firm’s corporate group, leading support to a diverse and fiercely loyal array of clients. Prior to Venable, Brandt served as General Counsel to SBE, a leading international lifestyle hospitality company that develops, manages, owns, and operates award-winning hotels, restaurants and nightlife venues. At SBE, Brandt oversaw all legal matters for the company and developed extensive experience with all aspects of the hospitality and entertainment business. He was responsible for negotiating and drafting complex real estate and hospitality-related agreements, debt and security instruments, joint ventures, purchase agreements, and many other contracts. He administered and enforced SBE’s substantial international IP portfolio. Prior to SBE, Brandt was an associate at Venable, practicing in the corporate, tax and real estate arenas. He also spent 3 years as a tax professor in the undergraduate tax and accounting program at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.
Brandt understands the real world challenges and time constraints that face in-house legal departments and management teams and draws on this perspective to deliver first class service and valued legal advice to his clients.
Brandt also helped to found Law Rocks, a celebrated not-for-profit that promotes music education for underprivileged youth and raises funds for local nonprofit organizations by combining the power of music and the generosity of the global legal community. Brandt lives in Napa Valley with his wife and three young daughters and when he isn’t with them, loves to help visiting friends discover hidden gems of the Napa region.
Contact Brandt
bmori@virtualgc.com
James L. Greeley ESQ., Principal
Jim is a seasoned general counsel, litigator and corporate generalist with a diverse array of large firm, in-house and personal business entrepreneurial experience.
Jim graduated Harvard Law School in 2001 and joined the Century City (Los Angeles) office of O’Melveny & Myers, where he established a litigation practice that included a broad group of film, television, music, new media and video game clients. Several high-profile trials, including one that led to a landmark Supreme Court decision, earned him accolades as a member of Law360’s Media and Entertainment Group of the year for both 2013 and 2014. He also represented clients in some of the nation’s most complex antitrust cases, and was part of a team that achieved the largest ever civil settlement of $1.25 billion on behalf of a multi-national computer industry client.
Jim left O’Melveny to become Chief Legal Officer of SBE, a leading international lifestyle hospitality company that develops, manages, owns, and operates award-winning hotels, restaurants and nightlife venues. Jim oversaw all legal matters for the company of approximately 10,000 employees, including complex real estate and hospitality agreements, debt and securities, joint ventures, international IP, complex litigation, corporate governance and HR. Jim also oversaw and advised on many operational elements of the business. In 2016, Jim led the take-private acquisition of Morgan’s Hotel Group, a publicly traded company. He continues to advise SBE as Outside General Counsel, as well as representing at VirtualGC a variety of other clients in different industries.
Separate from his legal practice, Jim founded and ran a West Los Angeles-based real estate business that funded investment in, brokered, and managed residential properties. Jim lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter and enjoys surfing, snowboarding, and international travel. He speaks Spanish fluently as well as conversational Portuguese. He maintains a longtime passion for stand-up comedy, which he used to perform in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
Jim sits on the board of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Make a Wish Foundation and actively participates in other community organizations.
Contact Jim
jgreeley@virtualgc.com
Contact Us
If you think that our services and values align with
your needs and goals, reach out.
We would love to learn more about your ideas and needs. We do not charge you for an initial conversation; plus, we always enjoy meeting new people.