Carbon General Counsel

Carbon GC provides embedded General Counsel support for organisations navigating growth, complexity and change.

Designed for the moment when businesses outgrow reactive legal advice but are not yet ready for a full-time GC, Carbon GC brings clear judgement, commercial direction and leadership-level support directly into the heart of decision-making.

Led by Sarah Morbey, Carbon GC is built to help leadership teams move forward with confidence – not hesitation.

Our Services:

Carbon GC delivers a practical, integrated General Counsel function shaped around how your business actually operates.

Our support includes:

  • Commercial Contracts & Negotiations: Drafting, reviewing and negotiating contracts that enable deals to progress while managing risk appropriately.
  • Governance & Decision-Making Frameworks: Establishing clear structures around authority, accountability and board-level decision-making.
  • Legal Architecture & Playbooks: Building contract frameworks, policies and repeatable processes that reduce dependency on reactive advice.
  • Risk Visibility & Regulatory Insight: Identifying pressure points across the business, providing clear reporting and forward-looking guidance.
  • Leadership & Stakeholder Support: Supporting founders and leadership teams through complex decisions, investor relationships and internal challenges.
  • Transactions & Strategic Projects: Senior support on M&A, partnerships, restructuring and other high-stakes moments.
  • People, Culture & Internal Issues: Practical guidance on employment, organisational alignment and sensitive internal matters.
  • Access to the Carbon Ecosystem: Seamless support across employment, litigation, regulatory, property and specialist areas when required.

Carbon GC ensures nothing falls between the cracks – providing one trusted relationship with depth behind it.

How We Work With You

Carbon GC provides flexible engagement levels designed to match your current needs – with the ability to scale support as your business evolves.

Advisory: Senior legal judgement on key decisions, contract review and light governance input. Designed for earlier stage businesses or those with lower legal volume who need General Counsel-level thinking without full-time commitment.

Embedded GC: Regular leadership involvement, commercial and governance support, legal architecture and periodic reporting. Our core fractional GC offering – designed for businesses navigating active growth and requiring consistent leadership-level support.

Strategic: Intensive support through transactions, disputes or significant periods of change. Built for clients facing elevated complexity or high-stakes activity requiring deep, sustained involvement.

Carbon GC defines engagement by level of involvement – not task lists. This ensures support remains flexible and responsive to what matters most. Project work outside the defined scope, such as M&A, disputes or specialist matters requiring support from the broader Carbon ecosystem or external counsel, is quoted separately with full transparency.

Sarah Morbey leads Carbon GC and brings significant senior in-house and General Counsel experience across healthcare, technology, commercial and high-growth environments.

Her experience includes:

  • M&A and transaction leadership (buy-side and sell-side)
  • complex commercial negotiations
  • intellectual property strategy and disputes
  • privacy, data and regulatory matters
  • board-level governance and stakeholder management

Sarah is known for her ability to combine legal expertise with calm, commercially grounded judgement – helping leadership teams navigate complexity with clarity and confidence.

GC is in Our DNA

Carbon GC is not a standalone service.

It is built on a foundation that already exists across the firm.

General Counsel thinking has always shaped how Carbon works – grounded in relationships, judgement and real-world decision-making.

This runs through:

  • Michael Burne, founder and CEO
  • William Brewis and the wider leadership team
  • Alison Mayfield, specialising in Financial Services and broader GC support
  • Rhodri Lewis, Head of Carbon Sport, bringing senior GC experience within the sport sector

Carbon GC brings this collective experience together into a clear, focused offering.

Why Choose Carbon GC?

Choose Carbon GC for a legal partner that works inside your business, not alongside it.

  • Clear judgement, not just advice
    Practical direction that helps you decide what to do next.
  • Embedded support
    Advice shaped by your strategy, people and commercial reality.
  • Built for growth
    Supporting scale with discipline, structure and resilience.
  • Senior experience when it matters most
    Calm, credible support through high-stakes decisions.
  • Connected capability
    Access to the full Carbon ecosystem when complexity increases.

Carbon GC transforms legal from a reactive function into part of how your business operates and grows.

Who Is This For?

Carbon GC is designed for organisations at a specific stage of growth.

Typically, our clients:

  • are scaling beyond 15-20 people
  • are winning larger or more complex work
  • are facing increasing governance, legal or stakeholder pressure
  • feel that traditional legal support isn’t joining the dots
  • need better decision-making confidence at leadership level

Common trigger points include:

  • a contract negotiation that exposed a gap in internal capability
  • a founder disagreement that nobody is addressing
  • an investor or board asking harder governance questions
  • a people issue that escalated because it was handled informally
  • a transaction, partnership or expansion that needs senior legal involvement

If your business is moving faster than its governance – Carbon GC brings the balance.

Begin Your Journey with Confidence

If your organisation needs more than legal answers – if it needs judgement, structure and support through growth – Carbon GC is here to help.

Get in touch to learn how we can support your next stage.

 

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Sarah Morbey

Partner
Henley-on-Thames

I like making a difference - helping people do what they want to do, in the best way possible.

Why Choose Carbon GC?

Choose Carbon GC for a legal partner that works inside your business, not alongside it.

  • Clear judgement, not just advice
    Practical direction that helps you decide what to do next.
  • Embedded support
    Advice shaped by your strategy, people and commercial reality.
  • Built for growth
    Supporting scale with discipline, structure and resilience.
  • Senior experience when it matters most
    Calm, credible support through high-stakes decisions.
  • Connected capability
    Access to the full Carbon ecosystem when complexity increases.

Carbon GC transforms legal from a reactive function into part of how your business operates and grows.

Who Is This For?

Carbon GC is designed for organisations at a specific stage of growth.

Typically, our clients:

  • are scaling beyond 15-20 people
  • are winning larger or more complex work
  • are facing increasing governance, legal or stakeholder pressure
  • feel that traditional legal support isn’t joining the dots
  • need better decision-making confidence at leadership level

Common trigger points include:

  • a contract negotiation that exposed a gap in internal capability
  • a founder disagreement that nobody is addressing
  • an investor or board asking harder governance questions
  • a people issue that escalated because it was handled informally
  • a transaction, partnership or expansion that needs senior legal involvement

If your business is moving faster than its governance – Carbon GC brings the balance.

Begin Your Journey with Confidence

If your organisation needs more than legal answers – if it needs judgement, structure and support through growth – Carbon GC is here to help.

Get in touch to learn how we can support your next stage.