What Excellence Really Looks Like In-House

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Deep Dive

The problem with “perfect”

On the surface, perfection sounds like a good thing. What business wouldn’t want perfect legal advice?

But in practice, chasing perfection as an in-house lawyer can slow you down and reduce your impact. Sometimes so much that the cost of the delay, and the swirl while the business team waits for you to figure things out, outweighs any benefit of being 5% better. If the goal is meaningful impact and overall excellence, that requires strategically letting go of perfection.

The key is understanding when “perfect” should be the goal, and when a solid outcome that could have been tweaked further with more time and effort, is actually the best outcome.

Let’s dive in.

Where perfectionism comes from (and why it’s hard to shake)

Do I need to write this section? I’m not sure I do. But in case there is even one of you who blames yourself for your perfectionism, or who thinks of it as a personal flaw, this is for you. Because your perfectionism is not your fault.

As lawyers, most of us have been rewarded for “perfection” since long before we ever passed the bar. We aspired to be at the top of our class in high school and college, and in law school, we were rewarded for remembering the obscure footnote in a dissent and spotting every single potential issue (even the weird, improbable ones) on our exams.

Those of us who spent time in big law got an extra dose of this. Clients paid our firms good money for us to italicize the names, but not the “v.” in case titles (yes, my firm actually required this as part of its style guide), and as junior associates, were taught not to talk directly to the most important clients in case our response wasn’t polished enough.

There was no limit to the amount of time it made sense to spend on “perfect”. As students, we slept less, went out less, and exercised less (ok, maybe this wasn’t the smartest tradeoff, but we made it). As junior associates, the client typically paid for all those hours.

So we got good at being “perfect.” We learned to spend the extra hour editing, anticipating every question before it’s asked, and finding the thing no one else spotted. And we learned to feel anxious if we hadn’t done all of those things, because it meant we hadn’t done our job well.

For a while, that mindset worked well. It made us sharp, reliable, and trusted.

But most in-house roles don’t reward that same level of obsessive precision in every task. Because business moves quickly, and that italicized period after the “v.” doesn’t do anything for the bottom line.

There are plenty of times in-house when “perfection” should be the goal. But unlike in college and law school, or even big law, using “perfection” as the default without considering whether it is the right standard for a particular task is a mistake.

Now that you’re in-house, you need to know the difference between those times when “perfection” is necessary and helpful, and when it’s actually holding you back and reducing your impact.

Why knowing what’s “good enough” is an essential skill in-house

Your business partners are busy. They’re scanning their inboxes between back-to-back meetings, trying to hit quarterly goals, raise a round, close a deal, juggle a dozen priorities (just like you are!). Many times, what they really need is a quick gut check and a greenlight from you to move forward. Not a detailed analysis of every risk and alternative approach.

Other times, they need an NDA that adequately protects the company’s interests and allows them to speak freely with the counterparty. But unless something goes wrong, which it may, no one is ever likely to look at the NDA again. And they need the NDA signed before a conversation tomorrow.

That’s where “good enough” becomes a superpower.

When you let go of the pressure to be flawless, you start moving faster. You start delivering value at the speed the business needs. You stop overworking the simple stuff and free up your time and energy for the moments that matter most.

In order to be impactful and excellent, you need to be helpful, responsive, and strategic. And “good enough,” in the right circumstances, is all of those things.

Where perfectionism holds in-house lawyers back

Perfectionism in-house is often subtle and unintentional. It looks like overworking, second-guessing, or never quite hitting “send.”

I once spent 45 minutes writing and re-writing an email to a product lead explaining the impact of GDPR on a particular aspect of what he was building. I wanted to make sure it sounded just right, because I was telling him things that would shape the product. His reply when I finally hit send was “Cool - Thanks!” I realized I’d been over-polishing; not actually improving.

Here’s what it might look like in your day-to-day:

• The 90%-done deck that never gets shared because you’re still tweaking the formatting or adding citations no one asked for.

• The memo that gets rewritten six times, passed back and forth in Google Docs, but doesn’t make it to the stakeholder who needed it in time to be useful.

• The team that stops bringing you in early because your desire to “get it right” turns every conversation into a delay.

None of this is malicious. It’s driven by care and by wanting to be excellent.

But in practice, it can slow you down. Or worse, create a reputation that you’re hard to work with—even if you’re doing substantively strong legal work.

Perfectionism feels like a form of protection. But when it’s not intentional, it becomes a drag on your speed, your influence, and your ability to show up as a trusted partner to the business.

Reframing the goal from “perfect” to effective

Ask any CEO whether they prefer a “perfect” legal team or one that’s effective, and they’ll tell you that the team who’s constantly chasing perfection can’t possibly be perfect overall because they’re far too slow. So the CEO wants an effective legal team. That’s the team that is excellent.

When you stop trying to be perfect and start trying to be effective, both how you look at your work, and how colleagues perceive your role, change.

You shift the question from “Is this flawless?” to “Does this get the job done?” From “Could someone poke holes in this?” to “Will this help the business move forward while managing risk appropriately?”

It’s a small but powerful shift.

Instead of drafting a ten-page risk memo no one will read, maybe you create a one-pager with clear options and a recommendation. Instead of wordsmithing an email for 20 minutes, maybe you send the draft now and tweak it later if needed.

Next time you’re stuck in the loop of over-editing, ask yourself:

• What does “effective” look like to this audience?

• What’s the simplest version of this that still gets the job done?

• If I weren’t trying to impress anyone, what would I send?

Effectiveness and impact come from lifting your eyes from the sentence in front of you long enough to see what really matters.

When it does make sense to aim for “perfect”

Let’s be clear: what “good enough” looks like is extremely context-dependent. Sometimes, excellence does require “perfection.”

When your work product is headed to the board, the regulators, or investors—you want it tight. When you're interpreting a contract clause that could expose the company to significant risk, or crafting policy language that will be rolled out company-wide—yes, that extra pass is needed.

These are the places where detail both matters and builds trust. Where clean writing reflects clear thinking and protects the company.

The trick is learning to discern the difference.

Not every question is a high-stakes issue. And if you treat every request like it is, you slow things down and become distracted from other high impact work you could be doing.

So yes—polish the external-facing deck. Check every footnote when the SEC is involved. Sweat the commas in your next board resolution.

But also know when to let the little stuff go.

A Mindset Shift: “Good Enough” means strategic pursuit of excellence, not carelessness

One of the hardest shifts for lawyers to make is understanding that letting go of perfection is not the same as lowering your standards.

In fact, it’s often a sign that you’re leveling up and putting your effort where it can drive the most impact. That’s what excellence looks like.

And when you stop trying to be perfect at everything, your overall performance and impact improve.

You move faster. You show up in more conversations. You free up mental space to focus on higher-impact work. And your reputation shifts from “careful lawyer” to “trusted partner.”

Perfectionism makes you a technician. Strategic “good enough”s make you a leader.

So the next time you feel the urge to over-polish that update or spend another hour on that email, ask yourself whether it’s the best use of your time, or whether you’re just trying to feel safe.

Questions to ask yourself when you’re over-editing

Let’s make this practical. When you catch yourself rewriting a sentence for the fifth time—or hesitating to send something that’s basically fine—pause and ask:

• Will another round of edits materially change the outcome? If not, hit send.

• Am I editing to clarify—or to avoid judgment? Perfectionism often masks fear of being wrong, misunderstood, or just... seen.

• Is there a faster way to get this done? Could this be a two-minute Slack message or a five-minute call instead of a long email?

A little self-awareness here goes a long way. You already know how to do excellent work. The next step is knowing when to trust that you’ve done enough.

Final thoughts

Quick Recap: When to Let Go of Perfect

• If perfection won’t change the outcome, it’s not worth the delay.

• Being strategic means knowing where to go deep—and where to move fast.

• “Good enough” is often the fastest route to real impact.

Perfectionism can be helpful—so long as you remember that it’s not always.

The point of this newsletter isn’t to do anything less than your best work. It’s to recognize that your best, most impactful work as an in-house lawyer doesn’t just require quality—it also requires speed, clarity, and volume. And perfection is a tradeoff against all three.

One of the most powerful things you can do as an in-house lawyer is to start asking: What does this situation actually require?

Sometimes, the answer is polish and precision. Other times, it’s speed, clarity, or simply… sending the email.

The more you flex that judgment muscle, the more strategic—and impactful—you become.