Revealed: What the Business Actually Wants from Legal

Introduction to a new eBook, by Richard Mabey, CEO of Juro.

We survey in-house lawyers every year at Juro, and on the surface, in-house lawyers seem to be clear on their priorities. They want to ‘add value’ and ‘enable the business’. It doesn’t matter how we phrase the question – these answers come up again and again. In-house lawyers seem pretty certain.

Great. But has anyone bothered to ask the business what they want?

Well, we did. We went out and spoke to the key internal clients of legal, at some of the fastest-growing and most innovative companies in the world. That means CEOs, CFOs, sales leadership, people leadership, board directors, investors, and more.

Click here to download ‘Revealed: what the business actually wants from legal

We put those answers directly into this eBook: ‘Revealed: what the business actually wants from legal.’ No filtering, no finessing, and no guesswork – just their honest take on what in-house lawyers should be doing. It’s an eBook for lawyers that contains insights from no lawyers at all.

Through candid interviews, we reveal what sales leaders think of how their legal colleagues balance risk mitigation and commercial objectives. What board members expect from a general counsel joining a company they’ve invested in. Whether finance has the same attitude as revenue ops when it comes to contracts. And what an exceptional legal team looks like according to the CEO of one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe.

When are lawyers at their most useful? What qualities do they need and what should their objectives be? Which behaviours are valued – and which have the potential to frustrate? How can lawyers help their colleagues to do their jobs better? How can they advance the company’s objectives? What work is useful, and what’s low-value and should be automated? Don’t take it from us: take it from the people who rely on in-house legal teams to succeed in their jobs.

Read on to find out what the business wants from legal and, at the end of the eBook, take a look at what we make of the findings. What are the common issues that internal clients of all types identify about legal?

Here are some morsels to whet your appetite:

‘We’re trying to achieve tens of millions in recognised revenue across hundreds of businesses. You have no chance of piecing that together later from your contracts if the processes aren’t standardised and efficient’ – the CEO of Onfido

‘If it was too hard to work with the legal team, I wouldn’t ask for the input from the legal team in the first place, and I’d go ahead without them. Without a good working relationship with legal you could be taking risks that you didn’t even know existed’ – the CHRO of Relativity

My expectation is that the legal team is empowered to reengineer processes and take ownership of things that they’re a part of, bringing a group together to make it happen’ – the CFO of Duco                                                        

‘When it comes to legal matters, as a board member I want it taken care of. To be honest, in most cases, whether it’s a significant contract negotiation or a regulatory issue, I want it handled without me needing to know about it’ – the managing partner of Point Nine Capital

If you’re an in-house lawyer, and you’d like to know what perceptions your internal clients have of lawyers, then this is the book for you. Don’t take it from us – take it from the people who rely on in-house legal teams to succeed in their jobs.

Click here to download ‘Revealed: what the business actually wants from legal’

[ Artificial Lawyer is proud to bring you this sponsored thought leadership article by Juro. ]