The Definitive Playbook for Building Legal Departments at Growth Companies

Even in a volatile economic environment, there are many small- to mid-market companies experiencing growth, and many anticipating a hyper-growth trajectory. The legal department is a critical function for supporting scaling efforts.

The in-house team plays a central role in driving product launches and navigating their contractual and IP nuances, negotiating merger activity, complying with regulatory measures, and addressing the labor and employment issues that are tied to growth and complicated by a post-pandemic hybrid workforce. The legal department is further tasked with handling all the business-as-usual legal matters, which have only ballooned in volume, frequency, and complexity.

The strategic, risk mitigation, and specialty demands placed on GCs are enormous, while their corresponding budgets and teams are not.

The question is this: As we enter budgeting season, how can growth company GCs build the legal teams they need, but can’t afford to hire through traditional channels?

The answer is flexible resourcing. GCs can establish agile legal departments with lean full-time teams to provide managerial scale and handle core competency work. This leaner team can then be supported by a bench of trusted, on-demand lawyers for as-needed expertise, workload surges, and ongoing matters.

The paper that follows is a playbook for implementing smart budgeting practices to architect the high-performing, agile legal department that growth companies now require.