Legal judgement. Commercial leadership.

Make the next move with the road ahead in view.

Highly tailored commercial legal advice for founders and leadership teams building, stabilising, turning around or preparing to sell a business.

24+Years' legal experience
FounderBuilt several start-ups
10 yearsTurnaround leadership

Counsel built around the business

Not legal advice in isolation.

Rosie McKimmie brings a lawyer's judgement, a founder's pragmatism and a turnaround leader's grip on what makes a business stable enough to grow.

Every recommendation is shaped by the commercial objective, the stage of the business and the risk that genuinely needs attention. You get clarity on what is essential now, what can wait and what must be built next.

Where Rosie helps

Legal and commercial support across the business journey.

01 / START & GROW

Founder and growth advisory

Commercially grounded counsel for the choices that shape a young or scaling business, from structure and contracts to risk, people and growth strategy.

02 / STABILISE

Turnaround and board support

Calm, senior support when a business needs sharper governance, cleaner decisions, risk control and a credible plan back to stability.

03 / LEAD

Fractional General Counsel

Flexible senior legal leadership without the commitment of a full-time hire, aligned to the board, the strategy and the realities of execution.

The flagship diagnostic

The GC MoT

A focused deep dive to find the legal and commercial potholes before the business lands in them.

You leave with a prioritised short-, medium- and long-term roadmap: what needs fixing, why it matters, and the safest commercial sequence for getting from A to B.

STAGE 01

Build the foundations

  • Corporate formation documents
  • Governance and company secretarial
  • Intellectual property
  • Core commercial contracts

STAGE 02

Protect and grow

  • Employment risk strategy
  • Data protection
  • More sophisticated contracts
  • Debt, controls and growth readiness

STAGE 03

Prepare for the transaction

  • Sale readiness
  • Mergers and acquisitions
  • Due diligence preparation
  • Clean execution and transition
“The aim is not to bury founders in legal work. It is to focus on what is essential, when it is needed, so the business can move safely and commercially.”

Rosie McKimmie

Commercial judgement under pressure

Experience from the boardroom, the start-up and the turnaround.

A transformation studied at Harvard Business School

During Rosie's tenure as Global General Counsel, Newsweek's digital-first turnaround became the subject of a Harvard Business School case study.

View the HBS case study

About

Rosie McKimmie

A senior commercial legal adviser who has sat on both sides of the table.

Rosie combines more than 24 years of legal experience with first-hand experience founding start-ups and a decade in turnaround leadership. That combination changes the advice: it is not abstract, over-engineered or detached from the pressure of running a company.

Her work is designed for founders, boards and leadership teams who want a trusted adviser able to connect legal risk with the commercial road ahead.

Start with the road ahead

Find the potholes before they slow the business down.

Request a confidential conversation about the GC MoT, a current legal or commercial challenge, or the next stage of your growth, turnaround or transaction.

© 2026 The McKimmie Practice. All rights reserved.Commercial legal counsel for founders and leadership teams.