Maša Rupnik · the DealCounsel · Tech, Gaming & AI

The lawyer who has sat on your side of the table.

I spent 13 years as in-house counsel at tech companies — Outfit7 (Talking Tom), a crypto exchange, Hooray Heroes, Comtrade Gaming — negotiating licensing, platform and IP deals in regulated markets. At Outfit7 I ran the company’s contracts through its USD 1 billion sale. Now I do that work for companies that don’t have a lawyer in the building: contracts, IP and deal support, at Central European rates.

Book a free 30-minute call Run the 2-minute contract risk check ↓

Fixed fees agreed upfront · Reply within one business day · English & Slovenian · CET, overlapping UK and US East mornings

Sample · Contract review summary

Software licence · 38 pages

What you need to know before you sign

High 10.5 Limitation of liability — caps only your claims. Push for: mutual, capped at 12 months’ fees.

Medium 15.1 Termination — no cure period before they can terminate for breach. Push for: 30 days.

Fine 5.3 Trademarks — mutual licence, no changes needed.

Recommendation: sign once 10.5 and 15.1 are resolved. Full redline with comments attached.

Every review arrives like this: ranked risks, a concrete ask, and the decision stays yours.

Experience from Outfit7 · Talking Tom & FriendsEuropean crypto exchangeHooray HeroesComtrade GamingWIPO IP Management ClinicUniversity of Ljubljana, Law

Why companies abroad hire a lawyer in Ljubljana

Senior in-house judgement, without the London or New York price tag.

In-house, not law-firm.

I’ve been the person receiving the 40-page draft at 6 pm with a Friday deadline. I know which clauses actually bite and which are theatre — so you get a short list of what to fight for, not a 20-page memo.

Fixed fees at Central European rates.

Former General Counsel experience at a fraction of a London or New York hourly rate — and you know the number before I start. No billing by the six-minute unit.

Fast, in plain English.

Every review comes with a one-page summary: what’s risky, what to push back on, what you can let go. Standard turnaround 3–5 business days; 48 hours when it has to be.

Sectors

From mobile games to AI: the products change, the deal mechanics don’t.

Thirteen years of in-house work across the industries where IP, platforms and regulation collide. If your business runs on software, content or data, I’ve probably negotiated a version of your contract before.

Mobile gaming

Outfit7 — Talking Tom & Friends

Senior legal counsel. Publishing, licensing and merchandising deals, platform and store terms, character IP at global scale — and the contract side of the company’s USD 1 billion acquisition, across the whole business.

iGaming & online betting

B2B platform & game supply

Platform licence, development and support agreements with operators in regulated markets across Europe, North America and Latin America; supplier licensing and compliance.

Artificial intelligence

AI products & data

Model and data licensing, IP in training data and outputs, vendor terms for AI tooling, EU AI Act readiness — the contracts of the superintelligence era, written for humans.

Blockchain & Web3

General Counsel at a crypto exchange

In-house at a cryptocurrency exchange: platform and user terms, partner and payment-provider agreements, the regulatory interface. Commercial and IP terms for Web3 studios and token-adjacent products.

SaaS & software

Licensing, SLAs, DPAs

Subscription and enterprise terms, development and support agreements, service levels, data processing, reseller and partner programmes.

E-commerce & personalisation

Hooray Heroes — personalised books

General Counsel. Global direct-to-consumer terms, marketing and influencer partnerships, production and logistics contracts, IP in characters and content.

Brands & IP

Trademarks, copyright, licensing

Clearance and filing strategy (EU, UK, US and beyond via partners), copyright assignments for code, design and content, IP audits — the method I teach as a WIPO mentor.

Data & regulation

GDPR, cross-border, EU rules

Privacy terms and transfers, EU product regulation (AI Act, Cyber Resilience Act, DSA) translated into what your contracts and roadmap actually need to say.

Free · 2 minutes · No email required

Is the contract on your desk going to hurt you?

Eight questions I ask about every software, platform or partnership agreement before I let a company sign it. Answer honestly; you get the same ranking my clients get.

0 of 8 answered

1 Is the limitation of liability mutual — does it cap both sides the same way?

2 Before the other side can terminate for breach, do you get written notice and time to fix it?

3 Do you keep ownership of the IP you bring in and anything you build on top of it?

4 Can the other side change prices, scope or policies on their own, without your consent?

5 Could you realistically afford to bring a dispute under the governing law and in the forum the contract names?

6 Is any exclusivity or non-compete limited to the specific product, territory and term you are actually dealing in?

7 Are payment deadlines, audit rights and what happens to money owed after termination all written down?

8 Has someone on your side read every schedule and annex — not just the main body?

Services & pricing

Four things I do very well.

Prices are starting points in EUR, excluding VAT where applicable. The final fee is confirmed before I start — no surprises on the invoice.

Contract review & negotiation

Licence, SaaS, development, platform, partner and distribution agreements, NDAs, terms of service, DPAs. Review, drafting, and negotiation with the other side.

Redline with comments plus a one-page risk summary in plain English
A ranked list: what to fight for, what to trade, what to let go
I join the call with the other side if you want me to

NDA — reviewed in 24 h€290

Agreement up to 20 pages — reviewfrom €990

Drafting from scratchfrom €1,900

Negotiation support€2,200 / day

Send me a contract →

IP & brand protection

IP audit, trademark clearance and filing strategy (EU, UK, US and beyond with local partners), copyright assignments for code, design and content, licensing in and out.

A report: what you own, what’s missing, where you’re exposed
Prioritised action plan — this month, this quarter, can wait
The methodology I use as a mentor in the WIPO IP Management Clinic

Trademark clearance (one mark, EU)from €690

IP audit + strategy reportfrom €2,900

IP assignment / licence agreementfrom €1,200

Check my brand →

Fractional General Counsel

For teams of 5 to 50 without a lawyer in-house. Questions by email or call, review of every contract, a seat in meetings with partners and investors. I learn your business once — we never start from zero.

Agreed hours per month, priority response within one business day
Contract templates and a playbook your team can use without me
Month to month, no lock-in; scale up as you grow

Starter — 10 hours / month€2,400 / month

Growth — 20 hours / month€4,400 / month

Scale — 40 hours / month€8,000 / month

Talk about a retainer →

Deal readiness — investment, licensing, exit

Shareholder agreements, team option plans, pre-due-diligence clean-up, term sheets, and support through a major licence or sale — so the investor or buyer finds what you already fixed. I prepared Outfit7’s contracts, company-wide, for its USD 1 billion sale; I know what the buyer’s lawyers will ask for before they ask.

IP chain of title, key customer contracts, employees and contractors
A data room that answers questions before they’re asked
Term negotiation — you understand every line you sign

Readiness check (report + action list)from €3,900

Deal supportby agreement

Talk about your deal →

I am a Slovenian-qualified lawyer. For contracts governed by English, US or other foreign law I work with trusted local counsel and coordinate the whole thing — you keep one point of contact and one invoice.

How we work together

Three steps. No surprises.

Intro call — 30 minutes, free

You tell me what you need. I tell you whether I can help, how, and by when. No obligation.

Fixed-fee proposal — within 24 hours

You know what you get, when, and for how much. If scope changes mid-way, we agree it before, not on the invoice.

Delivery with a plain-English summary

Every document comes with a short note: what I changed, why, and what you need to decide. The decision stays yours.

About

I’m Maša Rupnik. I wrote contracts on the company’s side — not against it.

I trained at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Law and spent my career as in-house counsel at technology companies: as senior legal counsel at Outfit7, the studio behind Talking Tom & Friends, where I managed the contracts across the whole company and prepared the business for sale — it was acquired for USD 1 billion in 2017; as General Counsel at a cryptocurrency exchange; as General Counsel at Hooray Studios, the company behind the Hooray Heroes personalised books sold worldwide; and today as legal counsel at Comtrade Gaming, a B2B platform supplier to regulated online gaming operators. I have negotiated software licence, development and platform deals with international partners, run trademark and copyright protection, and built legal functions in companies that grow fast.

As a mentor in the WIPO IP Management Clinic I help companies build an IP strategy they can actually execute. DealCounsel is where I offer that experience to companies that don’t have a lawyer yet — or don’t need one full-time.

13+ years in-house at tech companies

500+ contracts reviewed and negotiated

USD 1 bn the Outfit7 sale I prepared the contracts for

LinkedIn profile →

Why DealCounsel

Every contract is a deal: someone wants something from you, you want something back, and the paper decides who carries the risk if it goes wrong. I’ve sat on the company’s side of hundreds of those, including one worth a billion dollars. The job is the same at every size: get the deal done, and make sure it’s one you can live with.

Who it’s for

I work best with companies that are building something.

Yes, that’s us

Game studios, iGaming suppliers and operators, AI and SaaS companies, Web3 projects
Startups and scale-ups from seed to Series B, anywhere in Europe, the UK or North America
Companies entering or expanding in the EU that need contracts and IP sorted by someone who knows the rules
Founders who want a lawyer who answers the same day and in one page

Not what I do

Court representation and litigation — if a dispute escalates, I bring in a partner law firm and stay involved as the person who knows your file
Formal legal opinions under foreign law — I coordinate local counsel for those
Family, criminal, real-estate and private matters

Not sure? Ask. If I can’t help, I’ll tell you who can.

What clients say

In their words.

“We had a publishing deal on the table with a clause that would have handed over our IP for the next three titles. Maša spotted it in a day, explained the risk in one page and negotiated it out without souring the relationship. It felt like having a general counsel on the team.”

Jan K., CEO, mobile game studio

“Our SaaS terms and DPAs were a patchwork from three different templates. Maša rebuilt them into one clean set our sales team can actually send, and our enterprise deals stopped getting stuck in legal review.”

Sarah M., COO, B2B software company

FAQ

What people ask first.

Something else? Write to me — I reply within one business day.

Are you a law firm?

No. I’m an independent, Slovenian-qualified lawyer working as a legal consultant — the way a fractional General Counsel does. I draft, review, advise and negotiate; I don’t represent clients in court. For litigation or formal opinions under foreign law I bring in partner firms and coordinate them.

Can you work on contracts under English or US law?

Most of the contracts I’ve negotiated were in English and many were governed by English or US law. Commercial logic, risk allocation and IP mechanics are what I do; where a point turns on local law, I check it with local counsel and tell you so. You get one point of contact.

How does pricing work?

Fixed fees for defined work, confirmed before I start. Monthly retainers for ongoing support, month to month. The intro call is free. Invoices in EUR; I can invoice in USD or GBP on request.

Where are you and what hours do you keep?

Ljubljana, Slovenia (CET). That overlaps the whole European and UK working day and US East Coast mornings. Calls on Google Meet, Zoom or Teams; documents in Word with tracked changes or in your tool of choice.

How fast?

NDAs within 24 hours. Standard contract review in 3–5 business days. Rush in 48 hours with a surcharge agreed upfront. Retainer clients come first.

Confidentiality?

A given. I’ll sign your NDA before the first document, or send you mine. Your files are never shared without your permission.

Let’s start

Tell me what’s on your desk. I reply within one business day.

A free 30-minute call to see whether I can help. If I can’t, I’ll tell you who can.

Book a slot in my calendar → masa@dealcounsel.guru LinkedIn