The legal department and the legal department are a relationship of urgent need. If your Legal Ops feature does things right, most members of your legal department will know them, know the value they add, and won`t remember a time when they didn`t have a Legal Ops feature, because they`re always there to think about problems, solutions, and automations to speed up the work of the legal department and, Ultimately, business. CC: What is the nature of the relationship between the General Counsel and the Legal Ops function? JM: Drive slowly. Enjoy the scenery. It`s about building a team for the problems of today and tomorrow. It starts slowly and provides a good understanding of how the business works and how our legal team supports that business – their main weaknesses and the General Counsel`s strategy. Then, think of one to three areas as a starting point for your team and try to do them relatively well and create value quickly. Then create your other features. CC: Why is Legal Ops a necessary part of the legal department? CC: What are the biggest lessons you`ve learned so far as a legal operations professional? Help us make statutory salaries more transparent. Get exclusive access to anonymized legal salary data. JM: The relationship between the General Counsel and the Legal Ops function is one of mutual compatibility and necessity. When I left Cisco, I wasn`t aware of the buy-in and support I had with the General Counsel. JM: Legal Ops` mission is to adapt the way legal staff work and do work to support the business.
A colleague of mine recently left because of greater opportunities. He sent me a very short note saying that something like you had changed my approach to legal work. If your GC is not plugged in and curious about Legal Ops, you may not feel like all the lights in the room are on. License our cutting-edge legal content to strengthen your thought leadership and brand. The strategy of a legal operations team should be closely linked to the general counsel`s strategy for the department. I learned all this when I had to build the value story, buy-in, and strategy from scratch with a new team at Spotify. Recognize outstanding legal achievements focused at the national level, primarily on leading lawyers and in-house departments. Legal operations and technicians exude efficiency.
They know how to get lawyers and legal professionals to do more with less and grow the department in a healthy way – more in line with the company`s growth. CC: What is your strategy for building the Legal Ops team? CC: When the time comes, what legacy would you like to leave at Netflix as Director of Legal Operations? Some of them can be effective individually, so they incorporate that into how they deliver their legal work product to their business partners. But they don`t know the effectiveness. They don`t know about automation. They don`t know the scale. They come from law school and know how to mitigate risk and draft the contract. I thought I was a technician, and I draw. I combined Netflix culture with the Legal Ops role to help the legal department achieve its goals with law firms.
If I could do it on a large scale — for the entire legal department — it would be an important legacy. And that`s what I`m looking for when it comes to hiring lawyers and tech talent. People who know how to advance their own learning. „There`s so much behind buying in and managing change, selling and guiding people on this journey and taking people where they are.” At the beginning of my career, the feedback really stung me and it still is. But my attitude towards him now says, „Bring it, it will help me solve the mystery.” Now I use feedback as a compass. You don`t want your department to grow faster than sales, and then you have this one-sided department of employees working slowly and inefficiently. Failure and feedback are also your friends – especially feedback. All these things we solve are puzzles, and we don`t know what the user really needs. JM: You can`t be good at everything, so don`t try. It`s okay to say I can`t do it now or that it`s not my skill.
JM: Partnership. I have never worked in a law firm. When I got into this role and had to start negotiating with law firms, I didn`t know how to go about it. We have opened the original job posting in a new tab. Having trouble finding the tab? Open it here. CC: What is your negotiation strategy with consultants and law firms? There is so much behind buying in and managing change, selling and coaching people on a digital transformation journey and taking people where they are. And for that, you need the right skills and mindsets. I think that`s my biggest challenge in any role – convincing them to believe me. JM: Legal departments are generally not known for their efficiency. It`s something they don`t come out of law school or practice with in their careers. We start where we are – where the agreement is today, the prices or the commitment. How can we repeat a step or two forward and work together and continue to negotiate to get better terms for everyone? This means that we bring you more business, you give us better prices.
If someone tells you what they hate about a contract management solution, it`s your job to hear and analyze them, not take them personally. Sometimes I wonder when people talk about the failure to implement contract management solutions – is it the technology or did you not get the approval or did you not do the right job? JM: Membership. To get buy-in, you need to tell stories. You have to look at everything and find a narrative that others can understand. And it takes a long time to learn how to do it well. Then you may need to change companies and learn how to do it in their language in a new business. When I learned to play bass guitar, my bass teacher fired me after seven months and I said, „I`m not ready to stop learning.” He said, „I`m going to teach you how to play bass. I have given you the whole program. You have to go home and repeat it and run scales. So I did that for two years, joined five bands and went around the world. Within the company and its operation, I have never seen anything like this in companies. It`s different from other corporate cultures I`ve belonged to and that fits well with who I am.