Building a Legal Team

The best-run legal team I've ever seen has 2 lawyers who support just over 800 people, so I figured out what made them different. Most legal teams I talk to are drowning, so I had to ask them what they were doing differently. To be honest, I expected them to tell me they had some sort of secret tool or a few hidden contractors, but that wasn’t the case. They had a simple, clear rule that they followed without fail: their lawyers don't touch work that doesn't actually need a lawyer. It comes down to a handful of choices, none of them especially complicated: 1. The routine stuff never even reaches them NDAs, order forms, the agreements they've reviewed a thousand times - all of that runs on pre-approved templates the business can send out on its own. (FYI - this choice alone takes ~70% of the volume off their plate.) 2. Every request that does come in gets sized up by risk in ~30 seconds A $5k renewal and a $2M MSA don't get the same attention, and pretending they should is exactly how lean teams burn out. Low risk gets a fast “yes”, and real risk gets the time it actually deserves. 3. Every department in the business has visibility into the status of their workflow Nobody ever emails them "but where's my contract?" because everyone can already see the status. This means that the legal team isn’t wasting half the day being a human progress bar. 4. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries They figured out early that "this might be legal" is usually just someone not wanting to be the one who signs off, so now when another department tries to hand them work that isn't really legal (a vendor onboarding form, a "can you sit in on this call in case anything legal comes up", etc.), it gets a friendly “no” and a pointer to whoever actually owns it. Now, I know this is the one that makes in-house lawyers wince. When you've built your reputation on being the team that helps with anything, saying “no” can feel like a fast way to lose your seat at the table. But a team that absorbs every "quick question" ends up too buried in busywork to show up for the decisions that actually matter. Guarding that time is what keeps them fast on the real legal work, and that's what earns the seat in the first place. It sounds paradoxical, but this legal team built a system that means the lawyers do less, which is the whole reason they can do so much. If your team is underwater, it’s unlikely that more headcount is coming, but honestly it might not even be the answer. The real work is drawing the lines: what can self-serve, what can be triaged down, and what genuinely needs a lawyer. Get that right, and 2 people can cover what most companies think they need 12 for. That's leverage you can't hire for.

Legal's Capacity Crisis Your legal team isn't under-resourced. It's mis-resourced. I hear this constantly: "We need more lawyers." "The workload is impossible." "We're drowning." But when I work with legal teams to understand where they actually spend their time, the picture becomes clear. A significant portion of "legal work" doesn't need a lawyer at all. One GC told me they needed three more lawyers to handle the volume. After mapping their workflows, we found they could handle substantially more work with their existing team - just by stopping the wrong people doing the wrong things. The breakthrough isn't hiring more lawyers. It's creating systems that protect lawyers' time for actual legal judgement. The most efficient legal functions I've seen operate like emergency departments. Triage everything. Escalate only what needs genuine expertise. Handle routine matters through standardised processes. They've trained the business to self-serve on simple matters. They've automated repetitive tasks. They've ruthlessly eliminated work that creates no value. Result? Lawyers who actually get to be lawyers, not expensive administrators. Stop asking for more resource until you've optimised what you already have. How much of your team's time is spent on work that doesn't require legal qualification? #legalops #legalresourcing #inhouselegal #legalleadership

I've worked in-house for nearly my entire career. Some observations for those who want to be effective in-house lawyers: 1) Stop leading with disclaimers. When executives seek guidance, they're looking for pathways, not barriers. Quantify impacts, propose alternatives, and frame discussions around business outcomes. Your credibility grows when you speak the language of metrics rather than maybe. 2) Legal judgment divorced from business context is inherently flawed. Witness your company's customer interactions firsthand. Observe how products evolve from concept to market. Understand the competitive pressures your colleagues navigate daily. These experiences will reshape your counsel more profoundly than any legal treatise. 3) Business moves at the speed of incomplete information. Develop the courage to make calculated recommendations without perfect clarity. Document your reasoning, advance the objective, and stand behind your judgment. Curiosity matters—but not when it becomes an excuse for inaction. 4) True value comes from integration, not isolation. The most impactful legal professionals don't wait for invitations—they actively engage, anticipate strategic needs, and become indispensable to business outcomes. #legaltech #innovation #law #business #learning

I conducted 400+ meetings with GCs, CLOs, and in-house lawyers this year. These 3 key insights stood out in 2024:  1. Strategic alignment is paramount. The best legal teams aren’t just experts in their field – they’re deeply integrated into the business’s strategy, aligning legal priorities with corporate objectives. 2. Operational excellence sets leaders apart. GCs and CLOs who embrace technology and streamline processes are turning legal departments into engines of efficiency. Measuring KPIs is the key to their success. 3. Rightsourcing is a game-changer. Hybrid teams are winning. GCs do more with less by leveraging a combination of in-house expertise, external counsel for niche specialties, and fractional legal talent to scale efficiently without overextending budgets. Hearing these insights repeatedly from legal leaders this year reminded me of how important adaptability is in this space. Do these points resonate with your experience? What trends have you seen shaping the role of legal leaders in 2024?

Over two decades of legal work spanning disputes, transactions, and tech, I’ve seen recurring issues in how legal teams work. When Adarsh S. and I began building solutions at Ad Idem, it became clear: Automation gets the spotlight, but few legal departments are tapping into the deeper value hidden in their data. Most discussions around legal AI focus on efficiency: faster contract review, automated workflows, reduced counsel spend. But a transformative opportunity lies in something more hidden—leveraging data embedded in an organization’s dispute history. I often ask In-house counsel: “Have you ever surveyed your disputes to identify patterns that consistently impact outcomes?” The consistent answer? No. The reason? “It would take thousands of hours.” This exposes the gap: legal teams are stewards of rich, complex data—but without tools to make it accessible, strategic insight stays locked in old case files. Ask yourself: -What factual patterns increase the likelihood of favourable outcomes? -Where do procedural delays consistently emerge? -What systemic organizational gaps do your disputes reveal—across product, sales, compliance, or customer experience? Currently, most legal departments see disputes as operational burdens to manage efficiently. Forward-thinking teams are reframing this. They're not just solving each case—they're studying the portfolio. The difference isn’t tech savviness—it’s conceptual framing. Consider these potential real-world shifts: -A tech firm discovers 80% of wrongful terminations come from two departments with poor documentation habits. After targeted training, litigation costs dropped 40%. -A real estate firm uses AI to analyse years of construction disputes. Subcontractors from one vendor caused 65% more litigation. Adjusting selection protocols halved future issues. -An online services company finds that slow response times in two regions correlated with higher customer disputes. By optimizing service response, they reduced escalations by 28%. These insights weren’t obvious. But they became visible with data analysis. The real opportunity in legal AI is predictive intelligence—not just faster workflows. It’s the ability to inform new strategies using old experience. To tap this potential, legal departments must: Assess current dispute data—organizations may not store data in a way that helps analytics Identify insights that impact outcomes — different industries have different points Begin implementation pilots — engage with legal AI to apply analytics to a defined subset of disputes Prepare to operationalize insights—tech without application creates limited value Create improvement mechanisms—outcomes should inform and enhance predictive capabilities Legal teams that lead this shift will gain more than efficiency—they’ll reshape how their organizations anticipate and avoid risk altogether. In a field where one dispute can alter strategic trajectory, this isn't optional transformation. It's imperative.

On Litigation — Part 10: Treat Every Case Like It's Going to Trial Most cases settle. Everyone knows that. But the best litigators treat every case as though it’s going to trial anyway. At first glance, that may seem inefficient. Why invest in working up a case like it's going to trial when the overwhelming probability is that it will settle? Economics helps explain why, in most cases, this is the optimal approach to achieving your client's goals. As I've described in previous posts, litigation involves strategic interaction under uncertainty. Each party acts based on expectations about how the other will behave. Those expectations depend on what each side believes about the other's preparedness and resolve. If you approach a case as though it's destined to settle, you’ll signal that in subtle but perceptible ways: limited document work, tentative discovery, half-formed theories. The other side will sense it. And they'll price that into settlement. The reverse is also true. Litigators who prepare as though they’re heading for trial change the negotiation game. They increase the credibility of their threat to proceed, effectively a commitment device in economic language. In game-theoretic terms, they shift the equilibrium. A lawyer who is truly ready for trial is more likely to achieve a favourable settlement, precisely because they don't need one. That’s not bravado; it’s expected value. Settlement decisions, like all litigation decisions, turn on probabilities multiplied by payoffs. If you're ready for trial, your expected trial payoff increases (since readiness improves your likelihood of success), and your opponent's expected payoff decreases (since they face a more formidable case). Even if the trial never happens, those revised expectations shape the bargaining range and push resolution closer to your client’s optimal outcome. There’s another reason to treat every case like it’s going to trial: it disciplines your judgment. Preparing for trial forces clarity. You must decide which facts matter, which legal theories survive scrutiny, and which witnesses you trust. Even in cases that settle early, that trial-focused discipline ensures that every motion, discovery, and negotiation aligns with a coherent endgame. Treating a case like it will go to trial doesn’t mean acting as if settlement is failure. It means litigating with integrity to the process: developing the record, refining the theory, and making choices that would withstand the light of a courtroom. Ironically, that’s also what makes settlement possible on the best possible terms. So yes, most cases settle. But the best settlements, and the best advocates, come from those who prepare as though they won’t.

One of my directors was brainstorming with their team on things they could stop doing to lower work pressure. A lawyer said they approve the exact same customer communication to switch between summer and winter time twice every year. So they all agreed that this was not very useful work for Legal to be involved in. Lo and behold, the first time they allowed the comms colleagues to publish the message without legal review, they got the time wrong. Legal Departments need to show value and use the resources and budgets the organization makes available to maximize business value, just like other functions. Levers that Legal can work with to become more effective and cost efficient: 👉 Mission Clarity Legal does not need to be involved in everything. A lot of things can be done better, but not everything creates unacceptable legal risk. A typo, a clause without a verb, capitalization gone haywire, not the end of the world, get over and on with it! 👉 Standardization Standardize and simplify your business rules and you’ll create opportunities. Do we really need to have 20 different contract forms in 5 languages and cater to every single request to modify a provision? 👉 Automation There is a lot of technology that can do the work for us (yes, here we go: AI!), or technology that allows our internal clients to self-serve. How about a chatbot on your Teams-site that can address simple questions like “can you please send me a NDA for a customer in Sweden?”, easily saves a lawyer or paralegal 15 mins of their valuable time (not including 3 missed calls on a Friday night). 👉 In-or outsource, that’s the question If a legal human being needs to be involved, does it have to be in-house or are we better off outsourcing to a law firm (better subject matter expertise) or a Legal Service Provider (better economies of scale)? 👉 Location Legal is that last frontier of labor arbitrage. Not all the good in-house lawyers live in London, Paris or Amsterdam. Think about setting up legal centers of excellence in Eastern or Southern Europe, North Africa, or South East Asia. For years, my motto was “to do more with less”. Instead, it should have been “do less with less”… …so we can send everybody home to their families at a reasonable hour (winter time) 😉.

I didn’t expect my last post about applying a project management approach to legal work to spark such a strong response - but I completely understand why. The challenges in-house legal teams face are universal, regardless of company size, industry, or location: ❌ Misalignment between legal and business teams ❌ Missed deadlines due to a lack of planning ❌ Confusion around roles and responsibilities between legal and other teams ❌ Clients expecting more than we can deliver ❌ Burnout from overloaded teams and unclear priorities ❌ Struggling to manage external law firms without clear guidelines ❌ Delayed responses from other departments Legal work often feels like a constant scramble, right? And that’s exactly why I’m such a strong proponent of Legal Project Management (LPM). I realized that by incorporating LPM principles into legal work, we can turn that chaos into something structured, predictable, and manageable. So, here are the most basic LPM principles I believe every in-house legal team can benefit from: 📌 Define objectives & scope Establish clear business objectives upfront Document what’s in and what’s outside of scope Describe assumptions (but always confirm them upfront!) Create formal scope statements for key matters 📌 Break down activities & timelines Implement Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Break project into smaller, manageable tasks Map dependencies and critical paths Set clear milestones and deliverables 📌 Assign roles & responsibilities Deploy RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) matrix for all projects Define decision rights and escalation paths Establish clear accountability frameworks Make sure that other stakeholders understand what is legal responsible for and what is not 📌 Plan & manage budgets Set matter-specific budgets for external legal spend Track spend against forecasts Monitor external counsel costs Use billing guidelines for external law firms 📌 Identify & mitigate risks Create risk registers (not only for “legal” risks but also for “project” risks) Assess probability and impact Develop risk management strategies Monitor both legal and project risks 📌 Structure communication Establish regular stakeholder updates Create communication protocols (how and to whom do you report progress, issues and risks) Use technology to report project progress Set clear reporting lines 📌 Control change management Document change requests Assess impact on scope/timeline Update project baselines Now, I want to hear from you: How are you bringing more structure into your legal work? Are you applying any of the LPM principles in your work?

The most valuable use case for flex talent for in-house legal teams is the least used. Most people are familiar with flex talent think about it as an immediate gap filler: - you have a leave - you need a backfill Yes, flex talent is an awesome resource to fill those gaps. In less than a week, you’ll have your immediate problem fixed. There’s value in these use cases, but where’s the huge value? Strategic rightsourcing - there are millions of dollars to be saved and created by taking the time to implement this for your legal team, but is only used by the most forward thinking legal teams (about 20% of our clients) Let me give an example of one our clients: We’ve been working with them for over 10 years and our Paragon Legal attorneys make up about half of their 30+ person legal team. The mix of attorneys are commercial, privacy, M&A, product, and a contracts manager. It’s a solid mix of full-time & part-time work. Our client is able to quickly move resources to where they need them, quarter by quarter, and year by year. Some years, they need more support, sometimes less — it flexes with the needs of the business. They are very judicious on leveraging outside counsel and only hire FTEs up to the point to manage the troughs — we help manage the fluctuations about the troughs. So, as a legal department, they get value from: 1) low fixed costs (and hugs from the CFO) 2) $600+/hour savings from the work not going to a law firm (over $7M dollars saved in 2023 alone — this is annual savings 🤗) 3) meeting the needs to the business faster - they access senior attorneys and get them working with the business teams quickly, and our clients don’t need to be the intermediary between OC & the business 4) no layoffs in the legal team - they didn’t overhire, they are super nimble and flexible, the core FTE team is staffed for the trough We know every year the big core needs & the timing, and we are also here to fill immediate gaps. I get when you’re already overcapacity and are drowning in work, you can’t even begin to think about solving the problem. And rightsourcing feels meh, but also bleh You can start small! Our client didn’t start with half their team made up of flex talent — they started with one, then two, and onward. To get the time back to work on the stuff that is the highest & best use of their time. Let’s run legal as a business! And I’m ALWAYS here to help — if we’re not the right fit as long as I can point you in the right direction, I’m calling that a win. Does this qualify as a rant? Or is this a story? Well, either way, it’s over. #inhousecounsel #legalops #legalservices

Most in-house legal teams don’t run on systems. They run on judgment, memory, and vibes. That works, until it doesn’t. ❌When someone goes on leave. ❌When work scales overnight. ❌When leadership wants speed and compliance. Suddenly, everything breaks at once. Templates don’t fix that. Neither do new tools. You need something deeper... A layered architecture that makes Legal predictable, teachable, and resilient. Here are the five layers of a modern Legal OS: 1️⃣ Identity Layer (who owns what) ↳ Define what Legal owns, supports, approves, and advises. 2️⃣ Process Layer (how work moves) ↳ Map intake, triage, approvals, handoffs, and “done.” 3️⃣ Logic Layer (when and why decisions happen) ↳ Codify risk thresholds, escalation rules, and decision trees. 4️⃣ Prioritisation Layer (what happens first) ↳ Design systems for focus, delegation, and balance. 5️⃣ Governance Layer (how it stays alive) ↳ Assign owners, update cycles, training, and version control. When you start running Legal like a system: ✅Problems become design issues. ✅Delays become workflow issues. ✅Burnout becomes a prioritisation issue. And improvement becomes inevitable. 📘 Detailed guide is now live on my newsletter (link in bio). 💾 Save this post. ♻️ Share it with a colleague.