General counsel must reshape corporate expectations about legal department delivery capability to increase their influence and earn a meaningful seat at the top table, UnitedLex CEO Dan Reed writes in The Lawyer, reflecting on the recent General Counsel Strategy Summit. “A common, but outdated, assumption is that the legal team is there primarily to manage risk and respond to issues when raised—to be the firm’s safety net and legal resource pool,” Reed writes. “However, it can offer considerable greater strategic and operational value. The issues in question go far beyond the law that’s done within the four walls of the legal department” and extend to the business’s entire legal ecosystem.
