I shed a tear reading this. Beautifully articulated. I also picked up these learnings along my own journey but never really thought of them in words. Heroics v leverage is a very clean summary
This article did a fantastic job walking through something that is really hard to explain and that many people don’t understand even late in their careers.
You can be the person who keeps everything running so smoothly that management wouldn't dare promote you, so you have to leave to get a decent raise, because politics won't let them single you out for a raise.
Perhaps the best piece I’ve seen about why so many out house lawyers don’t get it, why so many in-house lawyers struggle, and why so many in-house departments are suboptimal. True leadership and influence requires a focus on the customer and the enterprise, not heroics and interesting questions of law. Embrace the concept that “every legal
Problem can be prevented ”, after all, the best legal problem is the one you never have.
It’s not difficult— but it is very hard because it requires folks to change and, as you do correctly point out in your piece, to accept a completely different view of self worth, contribution and influence.
Actually, if you adopt a vigorous A3 (After Action Assessment) process at the conclusion of every matter, with the business folks, and you examine not only what went well and what could have been better, but more important why we had to handle this problem in the first place, you very quickly demonstrate the power of prevention. Not to mention of cost savings. It’s a journey but it’s worthwhile. This is precisely what my teams did at FMC Technologies and Univar Solutions - we demonstrated and delivered value to the business.
Interesting article but it would benefit from some concrete examples as many of the concepts are pretty vague and sound like a corporate-speak. Also it's not clear to me if/how this model works for an inhouse lawyer who's part of a larger team vs. a GC/sole attorney in a smaller organization.
I shed a tear reading this. Beautifully articulated. I also picked up these learnings along my own journey but never really thought of them in words. Heroics v leverage is a very clean summary
How can in house become a Center of
Service, instead of a cost center?
Alex, hat off to you, what an outstanding article!
This article did a fantastic job walking through something that is really hard to explain and that many people don’t understand even late in their careers.
The same applies in technology.
You can be the person who keeps everything running so smoothly that management wouldn't dare promote you, so you have to leave to get a decent raise, because politics won't let them single you out for a raise.
Perhaps the best piece I’ve seen about why so many out house lawyers don’t get it, why so many in-house lawyers struggle, and why so many in-house departments are suboptimal. True leadership and influence requires a focus on the customer and the enterprise, not heroics and interesting questions of law. Embrace the concept that “every legal
Problem can be prevented ”, after all, the best legal problem is the one you never have.
Thank you Jeff! It can be tough to convince others of your value by preventing problems that never happened.
It’s not difficult— but it is very hard because it requires folks to change and, as you do correctly point out in your piece, to accept a completely different view of self worth, contribution and influence.
Actually, if you adopt a vigorous A3 (After Action Assessment) process at the conclusion of every matter, with the business folks, and you examine not only what went well and what could have been better, but more important why we had to handle this problem in the first place, you very quickly demonstrate the power of prevention. Not to mention of cost savings. It’s a journey but it’s worthwhile. This is precisely what my teams did at FMC Technologies and Univar Solutions - we demonstrated and delivered value to the business.
Interesting article but it would benefit from some concrete examples as many of the concepts are pretty vague and sound like a corporate-speak. Also it's not clear to me if/how this model works for an inhouse lawyer who's part of a larger team vs. a GC/sole attorney in a smaller organization.