Photo Credit: Lite Productions

A new initiative is drawing on the trend of general counsel as business partners to help accelerate the careers of female corporate lawyers and startup founders.

The newly formed New York-based, invitation-only The Fourth Floor organization aims to connect members of the two groups with one another and ultimately place a high-ranking in-house lawyer on the advisory board of a startup.

But it's not about free legal advice, said Fourth Floor founder Breen Sullivan said.

“What [the startup founders] get is something that is not quite legal advice,” Sullivan said. “This is about strategic business advice, navigating the risk that is consistent with these companies.”

She added, “Over the last 10 years, there was really a sense of awareness among in-house legal professionals that we are a subculture: We have a J.D. but also are business executives, risk managers.”

Last month, Sullivan left her position as head of legal at Schireson Associates and is taking some time before her next in-house job to get The Fourth Floor up and running.

The impetus to launch the group came when Sullivan met Aparna Srinivasan, CEO and founder of pet-centric ride hailing company SpotOn.Pet, during a recent networking event for founders and investors. Their conversation, both women said, began to center around the fact that mechanisms for forming such connections, as well as the benefits those networks bring, have long existed for men, but not for women.

As a result of their meeting and subsequent birth of The Fourth Floor, Sullivan recently announced that she is an angel investor in SpotOn and will continue to operate in an advisory capacity to the company. Srinivasan hopes to use The Fourth Floor to find the best advisory board members to round out her current board.

“There is no ecosystem for women founders to broaden their network,” said Srinivasan, who serves as co-chair of The Fourth Floor. “There are all sorts of resources to help men get into this ecosystem, but nothing for me … A lot of founders don't realize how important it is to have someone with a GC's knowledge in your back pocket.”

For the legal executives, criteria for participation in The Fourth Floor includes at least eight years of in-house experience while serving in a senior legal position, though it need not necessarily be GC or chief legal officer.

On the founder side, the company, which should be a privately held (typically pre-Series B) startup, must have been either founded or co-founded by a woman. In addition, the business must be in an early enough stage where there is no in-house legal function itself nor easy access to outside counsel. Finally, the company must have growth-focused metrics and an advisory board.

Sullivan said she plans for The Fourth Floor to start matching, speed-dating style, the founders of such startup companies with the seasoned in-house legal executives—all of whom will be curated by the organization—by early next year. The two paired women ideally will work in the same space.

Then, the organization, which at this time serves only New York, though expansion into other cities is possible, hopes to facilitate meetings between the female pairings with investors. It will then support any resulting arrangements through the preparation of paperwork, the provision of guidance and rules of engagement and other matters.

“If we're successful, then we will profile those connections and hopefully help that founder get funding,” she said. “And at the very worst, this is a good conversation. If it's out there and part of the dialogue, how does that not benefit all of us? At least its an attempt to do something and create the network.”