I'm James, and I started Alium Legal to give fast-growing businesses access to the kind of senior, practical legal support that actually fits how they operate, without the cost and inefficiency of the traditional law firm model.

I'm a UK-qualified lawyer with sixteen years' experience. I started my career at a top-tier international law firm, before moving in-house where I've spent the last ten years as General Counsel to multiple VC and PE-backed scaleups. That journey has taken me from Series B through to post-exit, working inside fast-growing businesses at some of the most pivotal moments in their development.

Being GC at three scaleups also meant being the client for legal services, and the gap between what founders needed and what they got was striking.

Fast-growing businesses are resource-constrained, ruthlessly prioritising and operating with real risk tolerance, but the legal support available to them rarely reflects that. The law firm that acted on the last funding round is typically too expensive for day-to-day work, and advice tends to be over-lawyered and disconnected from the realities of running a startup. Problems go unflagged because the founders don't want to pick up the phone for fear of being charged. Legal debt quietly builds and then surfaces at the worst possible moment like fundraises, key contract negotiations or an acquisition.

At the same time, AI tools give the appearance of expertise and feeling of completion, but often over-lawyer issues themselves, slowing down or needlessly complicating processes.

This is what Alium exists to fix.

With us on your team, we’ll use our battle-tested judgment to remove the legal bottlenecks slowing your business down, reduce legal spend through fees that are proportionate to the work, and keep you ahead of the issues that could derail a fundraise or an exit. You get to focus on building and sleep well at night knowing the legal side of things is covered.