In the bustling ecosystem of any thriving company, several departments stand out for their visible impact on growth and success. Sales teams drive revenue, marketing creates brand recognition and finance manages money flow. However, amid these more visible departments sit our trusty legal teams. Often siloed and operating behind the scenes, their hard work and crucial contributions go mostly unnoticed by an organization’s rank and file unless catastrophe strikes. A company whose legal team I had the privilege of serving was once asked by leadership to come up with a catchy tagline that snappily defined the department’s value. Tongue-in-cheek, our corporate counsel suggested, “If it seems like nothing bad is happening … we’re doing our job.” She couldn’t have said it better, and that became our official slogan.
Suffice it to say that the importance of a sound and solid legal department cannot be overstated. Without it, a company teeters on the brink of chaos, facing potentially devastating legal and compliance issues that could erupt into loud, destructive, and irreparable crises. Historically, the bedrock function of internal legal teams has been well-defined: they are the gatekeepers of compliance, the enforcers of rules, protectors from lawsuits, handlers of disputes and the mitigators of risk. An organization’s proverbial shelter in the storm.
