Meeting brief

Prospective client meeting — Helix Robotics

Moderate coverage

Company: Helix Robotics; helix-robotics.example
Primary attendee: Eleanor Vance; General Counsel
Objective: Earn the right to be the firm Helix turns to for international expansion and commercial contracting — by demonstrating sector fluency, a credible cross-border bench and a pragmatic in-house mindset.

Also attending

Rohan Mehta · Chief Operating Officer
Sophie Carmichael · VP Commercial

Executive summary

Helix is a £58M-revenue UK robotics and automation company moving from a domestic engineering-led business into an international commercial one — new EU and US customers, a German subsidiary in flight, and a commercial contracting estate that has outgrown the templates Eleanor inherited. She is six months into the GC seat and is quietly assembling a panel of external counsel she can actually rely on. The outcome to drive: leave with verbal agreement to a focused contracting and international expansion diagnostic, and a follow-up locked in with Rohan within two weeks.

Key talking points

For the lift up

01Lead with an in-house operator's frame, not a capability brochure
02Anchor on the German entity stand-up and what it triggers contractually
03Surface the US commercial contracting exposure ahead of the Boston hire ramp
04Position a panel-style relationship, not a single-matter pitch
05Bring Rohan into the next session — operating model decisions route through him

Company context

UK-headquartered robotics and automation company building warehouse and light-industrial automation systems for mid-market logistics, food production and pharma customers. £58M revenue, ~240 employees, profitable, founder-chaired with institutional minority investors. UK home market with growing EU footprint (Germany, Netherlands) and a first wave of US customers in the North-East. Commercial estate spans complex hardware-plus-software-plus-services contracts, increasingly cross-border and increasingly bespoke.

Attendee profile

Eleanor Vance — General Counsel: First GC at Helix; previously senior in-house counsel at a listed UK industrials group, with a stint at a top-tier City firm earlier in her career. Pragmatic, commercially literate, allergic to over-lawyered advice and to partners who pitch capability rather than ask questions. Personally accountable for getting the legal function 'right-sized for an international company' inside 12 months.

Rohan Mehta — COO: Owns the operating model end-to-end; will care about how external counsel slots into delivery, procurement and the German entity stand-up. Decision-maker on anything that touches operations.

Sophie Carmichael — VP Commercial: Owns the customer paper and is feeling the pain on the US contracts; the natural day-to-day client for a contracting workstream.

Group dynamic: Eleanor decides on legal panel composition, Rohan is sponsor on anything operating-model-shaped, Sophie is the user. Win Eleanor's respect, give Rohan a clean operating frame and Sophie a tangible early win, and the relationship compounds.

Strategic signals & direction

Announced German subsidiary stand-up in Munich in Q1
Summarytriggers employment, IP assignment and intra-group contracting work no one has fully scoped.
First two US customers signed in late 2025 on heavily-amended customer paper
Summaryexposure on liability caps, IP indemnities and data terms inherited rather than negotiated.
Hired Boston-based VP Sales in February
SummaryUS commercial pipeline now real, US contracting volume will follow within two quarters.
Eleanor Vance joined as first GC in September from an in-house role at a listed UK industrials group
Summarybuilding the legal function from a one-person team plus ad-hoc external counsel.
Trade-press interview in March emphasised 'platform, not point-solution' positioning
Summarysignals a strategic move toward longer, stickier customer contracts (inferred).
LinkedIn hiring activity shows two implementation engineers in the Netherlands and a customer success lead in Germany
Summaryquiet build-out of EU delivery footprint (inferred).

Likely priorities

Standing up a credible, right-sized legal function — internal team plus a small, trusted external panel — inside 12 months.
Closing out the German subsidiary stand-up cleanly across corporate, employment, IP and intra-group contracting.
Reducing US commercial contracting exposure ahead of the Boston-led pipeline ramp.
Modernising the master customer contract suite to support a 'platform' commercial model without slowing deals.
Avoiding the classic pattern of inheriting too many external firms and ending up managing vendors instead of practising law.

Conversation angles

Open with an in-house frame: 'what does a useful external firm look like from your seat in the next twelve months' — earn the right before pitching anything.
Use the German entity as the concrete anchor — it touches corporate, employment, IP, tax and contracting and is a natural first joint piece of work.
Reference the US customer paper specifically — liability caps, IP indemnities, data terms — to demonstrate you have read the actual exposure, not the website.
Bring a one-page panel operating model (named partners, response SLAs, billing approach) — that is the artefact she actually needs to take to Rohan.
Acknowledge what the firm does not do in-house (e.g. US-qualified advice) and name the trusted relationship firm — credibility, not bluff.

Discovery questions

01Twelve months from now, what would have to be true for you to say the legal function is genuinely fit for an international Helix?
02Where is the German stand-up actually stuck today — corporate, employment, IP assignment, or intra-group contracting?
03On the US customer paper, which clauses are you most uncomfortable with as exposure grows — and how are you tracking that exposure internally?
04How are you thinking about the trade-off between a small trusted panel and a single full-service firm at Helix's stage?
05What's the smallest piece of work in the next 90 days that would tell you whether we are the right long-term partner — without committing either of us?

Opportunities

Contracting and international expansion diagnostic — 4–6 weeks, partner-led — £45–70k — designed as a 'try before you panel' first engagement.
German subsidiary stand-up package across corporate, employment and IP — £80–120k — natural follow-on within the same relationship.
Master customer contract refresh aligned to the 'platform' commercial model — £60–90k — Sophie's tangible early win.
US commercial contracting playbook co-developed with a US relationship firm — £40–60k — de-risks the Boston-led pipeline.
Standing panel relationship across commercial, corporate, employment and disputes — annuity over the next 24 months.

Risks & sensitivities

Eleanor will read any capability-led pitch as a signal the firm hasn't understood her role — lead with questions, not credentials.
She likely already has an incumbent corporate firm from the founder era — frame the panel conversation as additive, not displacing, until she signals otherwise.
Helix's investors will care about external legal spend discipline — avoid anything that looks like an open-ended retainer.
Do not over-claim US capability — name the relationship firm and the working model openly; bluffing here is unrecoverable.
Rohan is the operational gatekeeper; routing around him to Eleanor on operating-model questions will burn trust quickly.

Suggested next steps

01Send a 2-page diagnostic outline plus one-page panel operating model — within 5 working days — engagement partner.
02Working session with Rohan on how external counsel slots into the German stand-up and US contracting flow — within 2 weeks — partner + corporate lead.
03Short call with Sophie to walk one live US customer contract end-to-end — within 10 days — commercial counsel.

Suggested follow-up email

Subject

Helix Robotics — proposed next step

Dear Eleanor,

Thank you for the time today, and for bringing Rohan and Sophie into the room.

A short capture of where we landed: the German stand-up and the US customer paper are the two pressure points where an external partner can be genuinely useful in the next quarter, and the broader question is what the right panel shape looks like as Helix becomes an international business. We'd propose a focused 4–6 week diagnostic across the contracting estate and the international expansion workstream — partner-led, fixed-fee, and designed so that by the end you have a clear view of whether we are the right long-term partner, regardless of what you decide.

I'll send a 2-page outline and a draft panel operating model within the week, and would value a short follow-up with Rohan to walk through how we would slot into the German stand-up and the US contracting flow.
With respect,
[Your name]

Sources

Public sources surfaced during research. Open to verify or explore deeper context.