Download the Legal Disruptors report

As you read our report, I encourage you to think about your own business and the steps you can take to empower your legal team to become strategic leaders. The opportunities ahead are immense, and legal really has the chance to drive true business growth and change.

Let tech do what tech’s good at, and let humans do what humans are good at. Together, we’re a force to be reckoned with.

You can't have legal in a company if legal isn’t business minded. When you’re sitting in that boardroom no one cares about the legal agenda, they just want to hear, can you do it or can you not, and how much money is this going to bring us?

I always tell folks, we’re not a roadblock, we're a speed bump. We're here to slow you down to look at the risks, to figure out the risk appetite, and to see what we need to do to reach success.

Make sure legal is always about supporting the business to achieve their goals. I always try to find the best possible way to merge the two worlds of legal and the business together.

It's really training people to think beyond legal regulations, codes and briefings, to think more broadly about their organizations and how they can bring the business forward, not just to the legal team.

When looking to adopt and use technology it needs to start with, ‘what are we trying to do,’. I say this because I think all lawyers should understand technology and how data flows, but you can fall into the trap of overestimating technology and whether it actually gives you any headspace in the long term.

For example, my approach to contracts - rather than coming from the legal side, I always understand the business first and understand how business can integrate effectively with legal.

Go to events, be part of networks, talk to other professionals. You’ll find that everyone, from GCs to legal assistants, is overwhelmed by the volume of tech out there. Don’t look at the mountain, just look at the next step ahead.

Think more about developing your practice as a generalist. Learn a lot about a lot of different things as opposed to going really deep into one narrow topic or field of study.

When interviewing our Legal Disruptors, the messages were clear - legal has too long being known as the bottleneck and road blocker - but this is changing! Legal has a great opportunity to have a seat at the table, be part of the strategic conversations and show their true value.