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Hi there! It’s Heather Stevenson.
Happy Wednesday and thanks for being here! Here’s what’s covered in today’s issue:
Practical steps to stop legal from being a bottleneck without increasing risk (or burning yourself out);
Links you’ll love;
And More.
Let’s dive in.
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Deep Dive
Being known as a bottleneck is right up there with being known as the “Department of No”
And we all know it.
But here's what's less obvious: the solution isn't for everyone on the in-house legal team to work harder and faster. And it's definitely not to say "screw it" and stop reviewing things at random.
The real fix is more interesting than either of those options. It's about being intentional in building better processes and approaches, not just to specific work, but to the job overall.
Here are 5 things you can implement today to make sure your legal team isn't the thing standing between your company and its next win.
1. Create easy to use, effective, self-serve templates with appropriate guidelines and guardrails
If your business development colleagues email the legal team every time they need an NDA, and your sales colleagues email the legal team every time they need a new customer contract—or a slight tweak to your standard paper—you are doing work that serves primarily to slow things down.
With a new tool (templates) and approach (empowering your colleagues), this problem is easily fixable. And the fix will make your colleagues happy to be back in driver’s seat, and you happy to have work you don’t need to be doing off your plate, so you can focus on the most essential legal work.
Start by identifying which documents you’re regularly updating in ways that don’t require legal knowledge. If the terms you’re spending time updating are really business ones, and there’s either no discretion involved, or the judgment calls don’t require a legal background, get that off your plate.
For things like an NDA, use basic tools like DocuSign’s PowerForms or even Google forms, to let your colleagues add the relevant counterparty, counterparty signature and date.
For customer contracts, you may need to create a little bit more flexibility, like using a Word or Google template, with guidelines on what can and cannot be changed without legal review.
Positioning matters here: make sure your colleagues understand that the goal is not to shift work from your plate to theirs. It’s to enable them to easily complete processes in which they’re already integrally involved (while you’re not) on the timeline that most makes sense for them.
2. Get clear on what legal actually needs to review (and what it doesn’t)
This one sounds obvious. But in practice, it's one of the hardest shifts for in-house lawyers to make, and it’s also one of the most impactful.
Most of us were trained in environments where everything went through legal. That made sense at a law firm, where your only job was legal work. If the client asked for something to be reviewed, you reviewed it. Obviously.
But in-house, your job is different: it's to help the business move forward with appropriate legal support. And speed matters.
So what actually needs legal review? A useful starting point is asking yourself two questions. First: what's the real risk here, and how likely is it to materialize? Second: does evaluating this require legal training, or is it more about business judgment and common sense?
If there are no material risks that have a real chance of actually happening, legal review may not be necessary. Or maybe a lighter review, such as running the document through an AI tool that’s been fed your standards and asking for risk flags or deviations, is sufficient if it doesn’t uncover anything. The point is that sometimes, when the actual risk is low, a close review is not a good use of legal time.
It's also worth being honest about the role that habit and anxiety play here. Legal teams sometimes review things not because they need to, but because it feels safer. Sometimes it’s their instinct, and other times, it’s business colleagues who don’t want the responsibility of making judgment calls. These feelings are understandable. But the approach drains your time and trains your colleagues to route everything through you, whether it's necessary or not.
Here are a few examples where legal may not need to be involved:
Routine vendor renewals for existing, pre-approved agreements: If the terms haven't changed and the vendor relationship is established, a business owner can confirm that and move forward without a legal sign-off.
NDAs that fall within pre-approved parameters: If you've created a solid self-serve template with clear guardrails (see para. 1 above), your colleagues can handle standard NDAs on their own.
Job postings for roles in non-regulated functions: HR and hiring managers can handle most job descriptions without a legal read, unless the role involves a highly regulated area or there are specific compliance sensitivities.
Responses to standard RFPs using pre-approved language: If your company has vetted, approved responses to common RFP questions, your sales or business development team can use them without looping in legal each time.
Contract amendments that only update commercial terms within pre-approved ranges: If the price goes up 3% at renewal and everything else stays the same, that's a business decision that legal doesn’t need to weigh in on.
The goal is to be and build a reputation as a team that's selective, strategic, and fast. When your colleagues know that if legal is weighing in, it actually matters, your voice carries more weight. That's a good thing for everyone.
