Deep Dive

Developing a business-mindset is essential for in-house lawyers. Here’s what it means & how to do it.

A business-minded lawyer is one who understands that effective in-house legal departments do more than mitigate risk: they also identify opportunities to drive business value.

Becoming a business-minded lawyer is partially a mindset shift.

It’s the change from pure defender of the company to offensive part of the business team.

But deciding to be that key business partner isn’t enough.

In order to be an effective partner, you also have to understand the business.

Answer these questions to become a more impactful business-minded lawyer.

If you want to become a more effective business-minded lawyer and are trying to figure out what you need to know, these questions will help get you started.

And if you’re already a business-minded lawyer, reviewing the answers will make sure you’re set up for maximum impact.

This is written for in-house lawyers and assumes you’re representing one company (your employer). But the questions could also work for a business-minded law firm lawyer supporting clients.

Let’s dig in.

1. What are the company’s key business goals and how are they measured?

Is the company in growth mode, or seeking profitability? Preparing for an acquisition, or trying to stabilize after major changes?

What quantitative and qualitative metrics are being used to determine whether the goals have been achieved?

Ideally, you can learn both the company’s big picture and more specific goals, as well as how success is measured.

Depending on the size of the company, these topics may be discussed on company calls or in town halls. If not, you need to figure out how to learn about company goals and priorities. The best approach will depend on your role.

If you lead a legal team, make sure your team members also understand the goals.

2. What are the legal department’s key goals and how do they drive the company’s business goals? Note: If the answer is that they don’t, you may need to re-think your team goals.

Once you understand the company’s business goals, you need to understand how the legal team’s goals help drive the company-wide goals forward.

[If you don’t have legal team goals, work as a team to set them! It is never too late and always worth the time to make sure you all know and agree what you’re working towards].

For example, if the company’s goal is revenue growth, legal team goals may include things like increasing speed to signed contract. You might achieve that through better or faster legal review processes, standard agreements that are more frequently signed without meaningful counterparty revision, or otherwise.

If the company is focused on attaining profitability, revenue goals will still matter a lot, but legal team goals may also include a focus on efficiency, such as through the use of templates, alternative legal service providers, and technology.

Not every legal team goal will directly impact that company’s goals and that’s ok.

For example, you may have goals around team satisfaction, professional growth opportunities for individual lawyers, or more department-specific items. Those are valuable too (and likely indirectly contribute to almost any company goal, by increasing the general effectiveness of the legal team).

3. Are there any key industry trends or relevant regulatory or legal changes likely to shape company opportunities for the next few years?

In-house teams need to understand where their company’s industry is headed because it will impact how they support the business’s evolving goals and priorities.

Is the industry expanding or contracting? Rapidly growing or in decline?

Who are the key players in the space? Are they new companies, or have they been around for decades?

What does the regulatory landscape look like today and how do experts anticipate it changing (or staying the same) in the future?

Figuring out what the legal and regulatory landscape is going to look like over the next few years is essential not only to identifying potential risks, but also to spotting new opportunities.

In the case of legal and regulatory changes, the legal department is often better positioned than any other team to spot business opportunities. Business-minded lawyers lean into this.

4. How are decisions made and priorities set at the company? In addition to the people with formal power, such as the executive team, who else wields influence? 

To understand a company’s shifting priorities and dynamics, you need to understand who at the company has power over what types of decisions.

You should understand the formal power and reporting structure, and it makes sense to go a step further. Where possible, you should try to figure out who wields influence that might not be apparent from their title.

Why?

Because part of what business-minded lawyers do is proactively influence. And to do that, you need to know who to influence.

5. What can I see as the company’s lawyer that it’s likely no one else sees?

This question is a little different than the others, but it’s just as essential.

One of the unique things about being an in-house lawyer is that you likely have a broader view of what’s going on at the company than almost anyone else.

This is because legal gets pulled into all aspects of making a company function, from HR, to sales, to procurement, to M&A and more.

And while it’s likely you don’t personally handle all of those things (or maybe you do!), you’re likely to hear about them.

Figuring out the areas where you may see things that other’s can’t, including because you are able to connect dots they don’t have access to, is a huge lever to pull in increasing your impact.

Once you notice these areas, keep an eye on ways you can use them to be helpful.

Sometimes, this may be simple information sharing. (“Hey marketing, I know that HR has been dealing with a similar challenge - here’s how they solved it.”).

Sometimes, it may mean identifying risks or opportunities.

When you’ve answered these questions, you’ll be better positioned to provide advice and guidance as a true partner to the business.

You’ll be able to work alongside your colleagues to help steer the company towards the most desirable outcomes.

You won’t just mitigate risk.

And you certainly won’t be known as a “Department of No.”

One more cool thing to note about these questions is that the act of answering them will be helpful too. Because in the process of learning the answers, you’ll inevitably learn even more about your company and industry than required to answer the questions.