Cornerstone Pillar · Manifesto

Full-Stack Counsel for the AI Age.

One firm for the whole business. Fixed fees. AI-assisted. Built for the people doing interesting things in sports, entertainment, gaming, and tech.

By Drew Jacobs, Esq. — Founder, Jacobs Counsel LLC

Director, Sports, Entertainment & Gaming Initiatives at Seton Hall Law

Last reviewed: May 2026

Book an intro call →How we work

What is full-stack counsel?

Full-stack counsel is a modern outside-counsel model where a single firm handles the contracts, IP, deals, regulatory, and day-to-day legal work a client needs across the whole business — instead of routing every issue to a different specialist firm. It runs on fixed fees, embedded relationships, and AI-assisted workflows with attorney oversight. Built for athletes, creators, founders, and operators in sports, entertainment, gaming, and tech.

The thesis.

Legacy firms are organized around silos. Corporate is one floor. IP is another. Litigation is another. Tax is another. The model works when one company is paying for full coverage — and breaks the moment you're an athlete with a brand business, a creator with a cap table, a founder with regulatory exposure, or any operator who actually needs four of those floors at once.

The AI age has made the old model worse, not better. Deals close in days, not quarters. Contracts route through Slack, not redlines. Founders are spinning up products that touch IP, data, payments, and regulation in week one. A quarter-billed silo is the wrong shape for any of it.

Full-stack counsel is the response. One firm. One scope. One fixed fee. One attorney who knows your cap table, your customers, your collaborators, and the next deal you're about to sign. AI does the first pass on the work that should be automated. The attorney does the judgment. The client gets the speed back.

The stack.

The legal needs of a modern operator stack on top of each other — and every layer is something we run at Jacobs Counsel.

Entity & Equity

Formation, cap table, founder equity, 83(b), vesting, SAFE/notes, employee option plans.

IP & Brand

Trademark strategy, copyright posture, trade secret protection, brand-deal IP, image rights.

Contracts

MSAs, DPAs, order forms, vendor terms, NIL deals, brand collabs, talent agreements, licenses.

AI & Data

Model output ownership, training data rights, AI use clauses, privacy, DPA, AI-Act exposure.

Regulatory

Gaming opinion letters, sweepstakes structuring, liquor licensing, FTC endorsement compliance.

Deals & Diligence

Term sheet negotiation, investor diligence, M&A support, partnership structuring, exits.

People

Employment letters, contractor terms, IP-assignment hygiene, departure transitions.

Career Ops (Athletes & Talent)

NIL packages, transfer-portal moves, revenue-share planning, post-career business builds.

What full-stack counsel replaces.

Legacy law firm

Hourly billing. Six-minute increments. Surprise invoices.
Different partner for every category of work.
Associate-heavy first drafts. Senior review weeks later.
No incentive to move faster — speed costs the firm revenue.
Generalist on your industry; you teach them every meeting.

Full-stack counsel

Fixed fee per engagement. Scope written before work begins.
One attorney across contracts, IP, deals, regulatory, and ops.
AI-assisted first pass. Senior attorney owns the deliverable.
Aligned on speed — fixed fees reward fast, accurate work.
Domain-deep in sports, entertainment, gaming, and tech.

Want the head-to-head? See Fractional GC vs. Big Law and Fixed Fee vs. Hourly.

Who it's built for.

We help interesting people do cool stuff. That's the screen. In practice, that means:

Athletes monetizing NIL and building businesses

From a single endorsement deal to a full career-transition package — including the rev-share era and the post-playing build.

Creators turning audiences into companies

Brand deals, usage rights, IP protection, equity, and the legal scaffolding behind a real creator business.

AI and SaaS founders shipping fast

Customer contracts, model output and training data terms, fundraising, IP, and the fractional GC role itself.

Gaming, hospitality, and entertainment operators

State-by-state legal opinions, sweepstakes structuring, liquor licensing, esports player contracts, venue deals.

How AI shows up in the work.

AI does not sign deliverables. Attorneys do. What AI does is compress the parts of legal work that should never have cost the client what they used to:

First-pass contract review

Flag deviations from market terms, missing clauses, and template inconsistencies — before an attorney reads line one.

Research compression

State-by-state regulatory research, case retrieval, and statutory cross-referencing in minutes instead of hours.

Diligence triage

Sort and summarize hundreds of agreements, cap-table documents, and consents into reviewable structure.

Privacy and posture

Enterprise tooling with no model training on client data. Privileged work isolated by design.

Where to start.

Subscription Outside Counsel

Flat monthly retainer for the day-to-day legal needs of a growing company.

Learn more

Fractional General Counsel

Embedded part-time GC for AI startups and venture-backed founders.

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Project-based engagements

Single deals, formations, NIL packages, gaming opinions, brand-deal templates.

Learn more

Frequently asked.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is full-stack counsel?

Full-stack counsel is a modern outside-counsel model where a single law firm handles the contracts, IP, deals, regulatory, and day-to-day legal work a client needs across its whole business — instead of routing each issue to a different specialist firm. It is built around fixed fees, embedded relationships, and AI-assisted workflows so the cost and turnaround time work for founders, athletes, and operators rather than against them.

How is an AI-age law firm different from a traditional law firm?

Three differences: pricing, posture, and tooling. AI-age firms quote fixed fees scoped before work begins, instead of billable hours. They embed with clients across the business instead of selling siloed expertise. And they use AI for first-pass research, contract review, and diligence with attorney oversight — which compresses turnaround on routine work and frees attorney time for judgment-heavy strategy.

Who is full-stack counsel built for?

Operators doing interesting things in sports, entertainment, gaming, and tech: athletes monetizing NIL and building businesses, creators turning audiences into companies, founders shipping AI and SaaS products, and gaming, hospitality, and entertainment operators expanding across states. The common thread is that none of these clients want a different firm for every category of legal work.

Does full-stack counsel replace big-law specialists?

For the legal work most growth-stage companies and individual operators actually do — yes. For very specialized matters (large-cap M&A litigation, securities enforcement defense, patent prosecution at scale) full-stack counsel coordinates with specialty firms instead of replacing them. The model is built for the 95% of legal work that doesn't require a 1,000-lawyer firm.

Is fixed-fee pricing actually possible across so many areas?

Yes, when the work is scoped before it begins. Every engagement at Jacobs Counsel starts with a free intro call and a written scope. Contracts, formations, NIL deal packages, gaming opinion letters, brand deal templates, and fractional GC retainers all price cleanly on fixed fees. Unpredictable work — open-ended litigation, regulatory defense, M&A diligence with unknown scope — is priced differently and explained up front.

How does an AI-native law firm protect client confidentiality?

By using enterprise AI tools that do not train on client data, isolating client work to controlled tenants, restricting which models can touch privileged material, and keeping a human attorney accountable for every deliverable. AI augments first-pass review and research; it does not replace attorney judgment or sign anything that goes to a counterparty.

What does 'help interesting people do cool stuff' actually mean?

It's the screen we apply to every engagement. We work with athletes, creators, founders, and operators who are building something — not defending legacy positions or chasing extractive litigation. The shorthand keeps us focused: the work should add up to clients shipping more, owning more, and protecting what they've built.

How do I know if I'm a fit for full-stack counsel?

You're probably a fit if you have multiple legal needs that don't justify hiring separate firms (a contract, a brand, a deal, an entity, a license), you want predictable pricing instead of hourly invoices, and you're building something where speed and embedded judgment matter more than headcount. Book a free intro call — if you're not a fit, we'll say so and point you to who is.

Building something interesting?

Bring the deal, the launch, or the question. Free intro call. Fixed fees from there.

Book an intro call