In-house legal teams come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and often originate from humble beginnings. But regardless of whether you’re a sole general counsel, a small in-house team, or starting out with a few more hands at the helm, your corporate legal department structure can have a significant impact on how effectively you’re able to serve the business.

A healthy legal department should evolve in tandem with the wider organization that it serves – and by prioritizing efficiency and strategic integration with the business from the outset, it’s possible to create a legal function which is set up for growth by design.

In this article, we recap the basic purpose of the in-house legal function, explore the key considerations that should go into determining its structure, and consider how legal leaders can build future-proof legal teams that are not only effective service providers, but are also sustainable over the long term.

What is the function of an in-house legal team?

Before we can identify the optimal corporate legal department structure for any given team, it’s critical to first be clear about what legal is really there to do. The answer may seem obvious – the traditional role of in-house counsel is simply to service the legal needs of an organization and protect it from risk.

However, the day-to-day tasks carried out by in-house counsel, in reality, only make up half of their overall function. A modern legal department also has a strategic business role to play – one which is far easier to fulfil if the team is built to work in harmony with the wider organization.

Daily legal work

Barring specialized legal work (such as complex litigation) which is often outsourced to external counsel, in-house teams usually handle most internal legal matters across the business. What this work actually entails day to day will depend on the size, industry, and commercial priorities of the individual business, but it is likely to include at least some of the following:

• Commercial contracts
• Regulatory and compliance
• Employment and labor
• Intellectual property
• Legal research
• Document drafting, review, and management
• Invoice review
• Intellectual property services
• Legal operations

The types of work most commonly assigned to any given in-house team will naturally have a bearing on its structure. For example, in a larger organization which deals with a complex array of commercial issues, your team might be comprised of multiple legal counsel who each specialize in their own area of practice.

As legal technology becomes more ubiquitous, many teams are also finding that certain areas of work (for example, contract management and invoice review) can be optimized in a way that demands far less professional resource. This shift is also increasingly influencing corporate legal department structure, as many administrative tasks can now be significantly streamlined – or even automated completely.

Legal is also a strategic business function

While the bread and butter of daily legal advice is a critical part of in-house legal work, it’s only part of the value that a well-functioning legal team delivers to the business. Traditionally, legal teams have struggled with something of an identity crisis. Perceived as problem solvers at best, and naysayers at worst, they are often written off as a support function, isolated and shrouded in mystery from the rest of the business.

However, this perception is fast becoming outdated. The most impactful in-house legal teams are those that deliver tangible and strategic value to the business – not by blocking progress, but by providing proactive advice which aligns with the organization’s commercial goals.

To do this effectively, in-house legal cannot operate in silo; it needs to be connected to most, if not all, departments across the business. The more integrated legal becomes with the other functions that it serves (such as accounting, sales, and HR) the more it can understand the commercial needs of the business and anticipate challenges before they arise.

For this reason, structuring a corporate legal team isn’t just about internal composition – it’s also about how well legal is connected with the rest of the organization.

Factors to consider when choosing your corporate legal department structure

When it comes to building and organizing your in-house legal team, no one size fits all. The optimal structure for your function – and the roles and responsibilities that exist within it – will depend on a number of factors, including:

Organization size

The size of your corporate legal team is one of the biggest factors that will dictate its structure. In general, the smaller your team, the less flexibility you will have to be creative with your setup in the short term – but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be thinking about opportunities for future growth.

If you’re a sole GC or member of a small team, you might work alone, share generalist functions, or operate a simple hierarchy. However, if future expansion is a possibility, you should consider what any prospective additions to your team might look like, which tasks make the most sense to delegate, and how you could use legal technology to streamline the administrative side of your workload and make the most of the professional resources you have.

On the flip side, the larger your existing team is, the more luxury you’ll have to explore alternative ways to handle your workflows more efficiently. Instead of relying solely on generalist lawyers or expensive external counsel, for example, you might choose to assign more practice area specialists, or adopt comprehensive legal technology solutions (such as a legal workspace).

If you’re part of a larger organization, you might even have scope to develop a dedicated legal operations function – one which focuses solely on optimizing the efficiency of your processes and the way you deliver legal services to the business.

Location

Does your business operate remotely, in-office, or with a hybrid setup? The geographical spread of your organization will have a significant influence on how your legal team is able to do its best work. If you’re operating across multiple jurisdictions, you’ll need to think about ensuring that each location is adequately serviced by legal, taking into account expertise, spread of seniority, team capacity, and time zones.

Geography will also affect the extent to which you are able to operate a legal team remotely. While it might be possible for generalists to work from anywhere, work pertaining to a specific jurisdiction may well need to be done onsite.

Organizational budget

Whatever your ambitions for growth, the reality is that organizational budgets will always be a major factor in how far (and how fast) your legal team is able to expand – and most modern legal teams are under pressure to increase output without raising head count.

Expanding the capabilities of your in-house legal department, whether through additional staff or legal technology, can require significant investment – and it can be difficult to get buy-in from the business if legal is perceived as a black hole. The more you can demonstrate your team’s strategic value, the more successful you’re likely to be when you make the business case for growth.

One of the fastest ways to meaningfully demonstrate the value of your legal department is to prioritize investment in legal technology which includes insights and reporting capabilities. Once you start capturing, tracking, and reporting on the data that sits beneath your everyday work, you’ll be in a far better position to advocate for more resourcing.

Outsourcing

For many in-house legal teams, one of the most common ways to handle work of excessive volume or complexity has historically been to outsource it to external counsel or ALPs. For some legal teams, particularly those in smaller organizations who cannot justify hiring multiple legal counsel, outsourcing can still be the best way to manage specialist or overflow work – but for others, this isn’t always the most cost-effective option.

The choice between outsourcing some elements of your work or hiring more internal lawyers often depends on the type of legal work in question and how frequently it arises. Look at trends in your workload and use them to plan ahead. Does surplus work tend to fall into a certain category? Are there times when you are always inundated with a high volume of requests (such as the end of the financial year) or are you just fielding ad-hoc matters without a regular cadence?

The more accurate your overview is of the demands facing your team, the easier it is to make resourcing decisions. If you’re dealing with temporary and unpredictable spikes in workload, outsourcing might remain the simplest and most efficient solution. However, if you’re noticing a more regular pattern of a particular type of work constantly being sent to outside counsel, it might be time to consider saving all that valuable admin time and investing in a new in-house specialist instead!

Three tips for growing a scalable corporate legal team

Wherever your legal team currently falls on the scale in terms of size, location, budget and workload, keeping the following priorities top of mind will ensure that it remains agile, efficient, and future-proof – however it takes shape.

1. Enhance your legal operations

Legal operations (or “legal ops”) is becoming a part of everyday lexicon for in-house legal teams. Regarded more as a function than a specific team or individual, the main purpose of legal ops is to enhance processes and practices to help legal interact smoothly with internal clients and perform its duties to the business more efficiently.

Legal ops should be a key priority as you build your legal team. If you’re working alone, this might look like carving out dedicated time and budget to improving your intake and service delivery processes. If you’re in a larger team that can afford to utilize a dedicated legal ops professional, even better. Either way, your goal should be to reduce the amount of time spent on tedious manual tasks, leaving your team free to focus on strategic legal work.

2. Build your internal connectivity

For legal to perform efficiently and fulfil a strategic role in the business, it needs to be properly integrated with the organization. Relying on informal request processes, spreadsheets, and email inboxes will only get you so far before the admin starts to spiral – and that’s when mistakes happen.

Whether it’s introducing streamlined intake processes and systems which allow business users to track the progress and completion of legal matters, or simply establishing clear lines of communication to key stakeholders across the business, it pays to structure your legal team around the needs of the wider organization – always keeping the internal client experience front of mind.

3. Adopt legal technology

As we’ve already seen, streamlining processes and becoming more integrated with the business are both guiding principles for building a strong and connected legal function – and the simplest and most cost-effective way to achieve both is often with the help of technology.

The right software, such as a legal workspace, will help you reduce manual work, create clear channels for legal requests, and even empower business users to self-serve on simple tasks – all of which will help to focus legal’s remaining roles and responsibilities around higher-value work.

Ready to learn more about building an impactful corporate legal team?

There is no single blueprint for setting up an in-house legal function; but the most effective teams will always be those who take a strategic, rather than reactive, approach to their structure and ways of working.

Building your team around the unique parameters of your organization size, location, and budget is a great place to start – and by prioritizing operational efficiency and strategic integration with the business, you’ll create a legal department which is as future-proof as it is impactful.

Learn more about building an efficient and connected in-house legal department through the Connected Legal Certification. It’s free, you can earn CPD/CLE points and it can be completed in your own time!

And, if you’re ready to dive deeper, check out How to make in-house a powerhouse: A revolutionary way of working for in-house legal teams, the debut publication by Shaun Plant, LawVu’s legal evangelist – available on Amazon now.