Karen Gibbs

"We are a small venture funded company in California. As a small company, we did not have the need for a full time in-house legal counsel. But in April this year, we were sued by one of our larger competitors. Once we saw the expenses for the first couple of months, we realized we needed help. Our head of finance had used UpCounsel for GDPR related work in EMEA and recommended that we see if we could find someone through UpCounsel who could help us understand and manage our legal expenses for the trial. In a very short period of time, we were able to identify a few very promising candidates. We chose to work with Karen Gibbs because she had relevant background as in-house counsel for innovative technology companies before and articulated a strategy for cost that resonated with us. In the last six months of working with Karen, we have realized the incredible value even a contract in-house counsel can provide. Karen has very quickly understood the business, our team, and has become a strong champion for an aggressive legal strategy. She is able to push our trial attorneys on strategy, push us internally on making decisions about key matters, and of course keep a tight eye on costs. I wish we had hired Karen the day we got sued, and not 60 days after. I believe our strategy and costs would be significantly different if we had done that."