We understand your game
You should not need to explain financing rounds, dilution, founder dynamics, hiring, governance or investor expectations to your startup lawyers. We understand how these decisions connect.
The legal partner for ambitious founders
Give your startup a legal advantage.
We understand how startup decisions fit together, recommend a clear course of action and move the work forward. You see your options, their consequences and what needs to happen next, without the legal fog.
"Founding a startup is a pretty irrational decision. You choose uncertainty, long hours, low pay and endless list of problems to solve, all because you believe you can build something that succeeds against the odds. And while you are busy with the product, hiring, sales and raising money, legal is not the thing you want (nor should) to spend your time on. Let us help you!"
Building a startup is hard enough. Who has time or money for legal?
Founders are constantly making decisions about financing, hiring, ownership, customers and growth. Many of those decisions have legal consequences, but the law is rarely the actual problem you are trying to solve.
That’s how I approach my role. You bring me a business problem. If it falls within my expertise, I take responsibility for helping you solve it. Sometimes that requires legal drafting. Sometimes practical guidance, negotiation or simply showing you your options.
The objective isn’t perfect legal work. It’s helping you build the company you want to build.
Ecosystem Partners
Why startups choose our law firm
Founders I have worked with share what the collaboration was like, in their own words.
Luca Fábián
Co-Founder, Jurata AG
Ilaria Incaviglia
Co-Founder, Vale Biolabs AG
Mona Ghazi
Founder, Neuropreneur GmbH
Tomer Moldovan
Co-Founder, BeeHelpful AG
Matthias Rossini
Co-Founder, Avlana AG
Jean Buff
Co-Founder, Npercent Capital AG
See Problems Before They Become Expensive
The legal issue is rarely the whole problem. The real cost appears later through dilution, delay, lost leverage, avoidable tax, weaker control or a reduced transaction outcome.
Dead equity
A founder leaves but keeps a material stake because vesting or leaver mechanics were never implemented properly. The remaining team carries the company while future financing becomes harder to explain and negotiate.
IP ownership gaps
Your technology or work product remains with a founder, employee, contractor, university or former employer. The gap often appears in investor or buyer due diligence, when delay and uncertainty directly weaken your leverage.
Participation-plan errors
Your participation plan creates unexpected tax, governance or cap-table consequences. What was meant to motivate the team can instead create dilution surprises, administrative friction and difficult employee conversations.
Financing mechanics nobody modelled
Convertibles, the option pool, valuation mechanics and investment terms interact in ways nobody modelled. The round closes, but founder ownership, control or future payout looks materially different from what you expected.
Exit issues discovered during due diligence
Historical ownership, governance or documentation problems surface after a buyer or investor is committed. Remediation consumes time, creates uncertainty and gives the other side leverage precisely when you should be maximising company value.
What We Do
No two startups are the same. But their legal paths often are.
Founders have different ambitions, markets, teams and risk profiles. Yet the legal path of an early-stage startup is surprisingly predictable: incorporation, founder arrangements, hiring, incentives, financing, governance, commercial contracts and, perhaps, an exit.
Most startups should begin with approaches that founders, investors and the market already understand. The difficult part is knowing when the standard approach is right and when your company needs something different.
Good legal advice means knowing what can stay standard, what actually matters and where a different solution will help you build the company you want to build.
Startup Roadmap
- 01Incorporate
- 02Align the founders
- 03Secure your IP
- 04Incentivise your team
- 05Model your ownership and outcomes
- 06Finance your company
- 07Prepare your exit
Incorporate
Build your company on legal foundations that support your financing, governance and growth plans.
Align the founders
Define your ownership, vesting, leaver consequences, roles and decision-making before misalignment becomes expensive.
Secure your IP
Make sure your company owns the technology, brand, data and work product on which its value depends.
Incentivise your team
Design employee participation that works legally, economically and operationally for your company.
Model your ownership and outcomes
Understand how financing terms, option pools and liquidation preferences affect your ownership, control and potential payout before you commit.
Finance your company
Structure and execute convertible loans, SAFEs and equity rounds based on economics you understand and documentation investors can rely on.
Prepare your exit
Resolve ownership, governance and documentation issues before your buyer or investor depends on them.
Legal Advice Built Around How Founders Work
Startup legal advice should give you direction, reduce the work on your side and make the next decision easier.
We tell you what to do
You receive a clear recommendation, the reasons behind it and the trade-offs that matter. Not simply a summary of the law or a list of theoretically possible options.
We take ownership
Once the scope is agreed, we keep the matter moving, track what needs to happen and involve you when your input or decision is required. You should not need to manage the legal process.
We make complex things simple
We translate legal complexity into your options, their consequences, the key risks and the decision in front of you. Where useful, we use numbers, scenarios and visualisations instead of more legal language.
What AI-Native Means for You
AI-native does not mean automated legal advice. It means Fehr Legal uses capable AI models, structured company context, proprietary workflows and evaluation systems to deliver more intelligence, speed and consistency per legal franc.
Technology improves the work. Judgment, responsibility and advice remain personal.
Your context stays connected
Material facts, documents, assumptions and prior decisions remain connected across mandates, so advice starts with your company's real context rather than a blank page.
Options are compared systematically
Structured analysis helps compare scenarios, consequences and trade-offs before a recommendation is made, not after you have already committed.
Repeatable work moves faster
Technology accelerates research, review and structured analysis, leaving more time for judgment, negotiation and the decisions that shape your outcome.
Outputs are evaluated and reviewed
AI-generated work is not accepted at face value. Evaluation systems and professional review improve consistency while responsibility remains with Fehr Legal.
Where Legal Creates an Advantage
Start with the decision currently shaping your ownership, team, financing or transaction. We scope the legal work around the business outcome you need.
Build an investable company
Set founder ownership, vesting, governance and IP up for the company you intend to build, not only the company you have today.
Turn equity into a hiring advantage
Create employee participation that attracts and retains talent while keeping tax, governance, administration and dilution under control.
Raise on terms you understand
Structure the round, model the cap table and see what each term means for ownership, control, downside and future flexibility before you sign.
Protect leverage before a transaction
Resolve ownership, governance and documentation issues before an investor or buyer can use them to delay the process, reprice risk or reduce value.
What to Expect
Before recommending legal work, we first establish whether working together makes sense and which legal decisions deserve your budget now.
Start with the person and the business
The first conversation is personal. We get a feel for one another, understand your current situation and bottlenecks, and discuss the company's financial position and available legal budget.
Prioritise legal work against your budget
You receive an initial assessment of the legal work that appears most critical and how it compares with the resources available. The goal is to identify what matters now, what can wait and what should trigger action later.
Agree the right way to begin
We either define an initial mandate that lets us get to know each other through real work, or agree a future trigger, such as finding a co-founder, that should bring us back together. Urgent or remote matters can start immediately; longer-term collaborations may begin with an in-depth meeting in person.
We take ownership of the mandate
We agree the scope, timing and pricing upfront. From there, Fehr Legal tracks open items, moves the work forward and keeps you informed. We involve you when a decision or input is needed, not simply to ask what should happen next.
Clear pricing before work begins
Clearly scoped mandates use fixed fees. Hourly pricing is used when the scope cannot reasonably be fixed. In either case, the pricing basis is agreed with you upfront.
Personal Note
A Note From Marco
I founded Fehr Legal because ambitious founders deserve legal advice that is practical, commercially grounded and clear enough to act on.
Legal decisions rarely affect only your business. They can also shape your personal life and relationships. My role is to help you identify the decisions that matter, understand their consequences and act before avoidable problems cost you time, money or peace of mind.
At Fehr Legal we use capable AI models, structured company context, proprietary workflows and evaluation systems to deliver more intelligence, speed and consistency per legal franc. Technology improves the work; judgment, responsibility and advice remain personal.
Marco Fehr
Founder & Managing Partner
Discuss Your Company
Use a 25-minute consultation to identify the decisions that matter now and what waiting could cost.