Fractional GC Patti Barnard’s four lessons to legal success

Patti Barnard, seasoned legal and compliance C-suite executive and now a fractional General Counsel, is no stranger to legal disruption and success. But this success didn’t happen overnight.

When she first stepped into an interim GC role at PlanSource, Patti hadn’t planned to change the legal team, yet thanks to her leadership, it transformed into an impactful, disruptive function.

Now, having moved on from PlanSource, she enjoys the flexibility of fractional legal work, where she makes meaningful impact fast. But how do you create strong legal impact in a profession built on lengthy processes, challenging risk calculations, and often reactive work? Patti answers just this.
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From aerobics to general counsel

Patti always knew she wanted to be a lawyer – ever since she was a child she dreamed of becoming a State Prosecutor. But her work as a part-time aerobics instructor took her down a different path. After meeting and getting to know a GC who regularly attended her class, Patti knew the intersection of business and law was the route for her.

This led Patti to CoAdvantage as an Associate Counsel. During her time there, CoAdvantage acquired PlanSource. When CoAdvantage was later sold off, PlanSource continued forward independently.

Patti left in 2009 but returned in 2011 expecting only to cover the General Counsel role on an interim basis. Instead, she became the long-term fit, ultimately serving as General Counsel, Chief Legal Officer, and Chief Compliance Officer until 2024. Over that tenure she built and scaled a legal team that delivered wide-reaching impact across the business. .

But this impact wasn’t an overnight success.

“At first I was slightly on my own and it was definitely ‘fake it till you make it’ mentally. I just came in and I didn’t have a clue! I've always had a boss, now I am the boss. But little by little I started seeing the need for processes and to go faster.”

Patti credits her success at PlanSource to four key lessons. By applying them, she and her legal team became a highly effective department that delivered significant business value.
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Lesson 1. Understand your business

When Patti joined PlanSource, the legal department wasn’t popular – a trend across many businesses. Legal was seen as a cost center, often interrogated with the question, “why can’t we just use outside counsel?”

“To which I said, outside counsel doesn’t understand our business!”

This is lesson one in Patti’s teachings – understand your business.

“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?”

To earn respect and prove their value, Patti’s team needed a business-first mindset. She advised legal to learn how to “talk the talk”, understand sales language, business revenue models, and how to scale the business.
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Lesson 2. Buddy up with sales

Patti encouraged her team to understand sales’ goals and align legal’s goals accordingly.

“You need to buddy up with sales. Eventually at PlanSource, sales became sales and legal together. I wanted to make sure that legal was there for everyone in the business but especially sales because they are our biggest customer.”

She urged her team to build personal relationships with sales and seek mentors outside the department to broaden their business knowledge.

Once her legal team became more business minded, they focused on accelerating sales.

“I created playbooks so the sales teams were enabled and empowered to go out and negotiate the smaller contracts themselves. So by the time they got to legal they said ‘hey, I already negotiated this contract and the client agreed to this, it's in the playbook and we're good.”

These actions quickly caught the business’ attention as the team began adding clear value and directly contributing to revenue growth.
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Lesson 3. Write everything down

With her team’s new reputation, Patti secured bodies, resources and software to help legal and sales move even faster.

When she faced budget pushbacks she built business cases focused on ROI and tangible results.

“I documented everything! When I first wanted a CLM, I literally had to spell out what Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) was and I had to prove that without a CLM this is how long a contract takes, and this is how long it will take with a CLM. Look how fast it is and look how many deals we can sign!”
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Lesson 4. Make the business pay attention

After Patti proved her case and secured the technology and resources, she made sure the business recognized her team’s successes, knowing that sustaining their momentum and driving adoption of tools like CLM depended on raising legal’s profile.

“I mentored women and I was the executive sponsor for Pride. I believed in visibility for my team, as the more visibility for my team, the more visibility for legal as a function. So I made sure I had rock stars that I knew were going to shine and that meant that the CEO was paying more attention to us.”

Leveraging the team’s diversity and “rock stars”, Patti secured speaking slots for legal at major company events and organized parties around CLM launches to boost momentum and adoption. Legal was finally seen for their worth and well-earned successes.
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From 4 lessons to successful fractional GC

After 15 years at PlanSource, Patti was ready for a career change. Her move into fractional work wasn’t planned – she initially agreed to help a company with its contracting processes “until I figured out what I was going to do next.” But positive client feedback revealed she had found her niche.

Fractional work isn’t for everyone. But at this stage in life, where she’s embracing being a grandmother while thriving in her career, fractional work is what Patti needs.

“I'm at this place where I have the opportunity to kind of do over and CLM and AI tools allow me to thrive in this chapter of my life where I'm balancing my career and still being a mom, a grandmother and a wife.”

As a fractional GC, Patti steps into businesses, identifies problems, and implements solutions - from revamping templates to introducing CLM and AI tools. These technologies allow her clients to handle routine legal tasks, letting Patti focus on strategy and high-value work that technology can’t replicate – leaving a lasting impact long after her work is done.

Patti is the true definition of a legal disruptor. Her career shows that legal success comes from mindset and being seen as positively disruptive by the wider business.

Every legal career is unique, but Patti proves the same principles apply. Take her four lessons to legal disruption success and see how they work for your legal career.

To learn even about the route to legal success, connect with Patti on LinkedIn, and explore more of our inspirational Legal Disruptors stories.