How can legal advisors help their businesses grow?

1 Lead the way

To accelerate strategic decision-making and preempt future legal issues that might arise from new initiatives, you’ll need to align your organisation’s legal strategy with its business goals. This may require sharpening your commercial awareness and business acumen, an investment that will pay dividends for years to come. 

Building relationships with key stakeholders across different departments (such as product, marketing, finance and HR) will be critical to this process, especially in areas like D&I and ESG. Working towards a single vision helps to enhance collaboration between teams and strengthen a culture of compliance.

2 Streamline operations

Most organisations are looking to make savings across the board (a shocking statistic from PwC revealed that 40% of CEOs don’t believe their organisations will be economically viable in 10 years if they do not transform.)

You can contribute towards this transformation by making tactical recommendations on how to reduce inefficiencies and speed up decision-making within your team.

Leveraging solutions like automation, e-discovery software and even outsourcing work to Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs) means you can reduce the hours spent on manual or menial tasks. In fact, according to McKinsey, approximately 22% of a lawyer's job and 35% of a law clerk's job can be automated. These solutions allow you to funnel your resources back into more complex strategic work (further elevating your role within the organisation and empowering you to take on more big-picture projects).

A key component of this step is understanding the opportunities and limitations of AI-powered legal solutions. Many organisations are adopting tools like Virtual Assistants, analytics and Intelligence platforms to streamline tasks associated with due diligence, legal research, and contract management. According to a recent LexisNexis report, nearly half (49%) of in-house counsel will expect their law firms to use generative AI in the next 12 months.

Whilst these technologies can be transformative, they can also be met with skepticism and security concerns from internal stakeholders. You may need to advocate for these solutions and lead on their implementation.

3 Strengthen risk management

Organisations thrive when they have strong operational resilience and aren’t threatened by risks associated with non-compliance, data breaches, litigation, and greenwashing. But as more companies operate across different jurisdictions, and with regulations evolving rapidly, it can be difficult to stay one step ahead. A recent 2023 Thomas Reuter report found that  compliance with changing global regulatory burdens is now the top priority for a majority of corporate legal departments.

By putting in place robust risk management protocols, you can strengthen your business’ reputation, safeguard operations, and shield it from fines and prosecution. This is particularly important for legal advisors within financial services institutions who are being pushed to stress test their systems and ensure that better controls are in place to align with new operational resilience requirements.

To build stakeholder confidence in risk management within your organisation, Gartner recommends reviewing your current governance and risk escalation processes, defining materiality standards for new risks, and assessing the adequacy of your disclosure procedures.

4 Inspire confidence and trust in your brand

To accelerate growth and expand their reach, many organisations will be looking at introducing innovative new products and services into global markets in 2024. Legal advisors within organisations such as these will play a significant role in helping their teams achieve this by ensuring these new offerings are protected from regulatory and IP risks.

Another area you will be able to support your business is ethical leadership. Customers want to engage with brands that share their values and will be scrutinising the ESG credentials of companies for evidence. A 2023 Deloitte report revealed that one in ten consumers will make a purchase decision based on carbon footprint data availability.

You’ll need to work proactively with key stakeholders (and even external advisors) to protect your organisation from any greenwashing claims and risks associated with employment law, international operational requirements and non-compliance.

5 Advocate for training

One of the greatest professional legacies you can create is building a legal workforce ready for the future. Most will have witnessed the structure of their legal department rapidly change over the past decade, but this evolution is only just beginning. Since 2015, skills sets for jobs have changed by around 25%. By 2027, this number is expected to double.

To ensure you and your team are as reactive, flexible and dynamic as possible, you’ll need to advocate for further training in both soft and technical skills. Areas like business acumen, data analytics, ESG knowledge and innovative thinking are becoming critical for legal advisors who want to effectively influence change. Most supervising and practicing attorneys in Bloomberg Law’s 2023 survey said that new associates and recent graduates were deficient in client-centric skills, including client counseling and advising, client relationship management, and client communications and interactions.

Investment in training should be a top priority when looking at your 2024 budget. If you need to build a business case for investment, a key area to include in your proposal is the unique capabilities of your team and the critical role you play in supporting your organisation’s growth.