Mitigating the risk of lawyers

It’s not a crime to be innocent, these things we have not done
But you’re not some little child, spring is past and gone
Well I know my craving heart and I’ve seen your vicious eyes
And I think we know the truth, both you and I
Don’t flutter your lashes like a little girl
And ask me why it’s such a cruel, cruel world, no
Don’t ask any more stupid questions
You already know the answers to,

New Model Army, Stupid Questions

Lawyers represent a huge risk to the business. Most of them believe their role is to insure they can never be blamed for any decision made, rather than the traditional role of a business – to make money.

And I’m not even talking about external lawyers who are looking for ways to sue you these are your own employees who earn their living of your business.

A typical discussion with the legal department goes something like this:

• Manager: Can I Do X?
• Legal:No, it is risky.
• Manager:But It is Really Important.
• Legal: I’ll check.

Legal never get back so the managers pings legal two weeks later.

• Manager : What’s the answer? Legal : You can’t.
• Manager : Why? Because it is very risky for IP\TAX\HR\Contract reasons.

Happy Legal Expert Taking Risks

I have learned a few rules to mitigate the risk from the legal department.

• Learn the principles. My two MBA courses on contracts and law in information systems have given me enough basics to ask hard questions.
• Managers should understand employees’ social rights , benefits and different employment models etc. This is important part of the role, not “HR department role”.
• Always start from the business goal. The lawyer cannot argue about that because he does not understand the business and because you are the owner.
• If you are hiring the lawyers get the good ones who understand business and are service oriented.
• If you are using internal legal and  get bad service – complain. Legal is a service provider , just like the IT department. If their responses are slow, inaccurate or unhelpful to te manager one should talk to their executive and ask for assistance.
• Demand domain expertise. High-Tech Lawyers should understand the difference between SaaS ans On Premise, for example.

• Use standard forms,standard contracts, standard NDA etc. It is not scalable to rethink these for each relationship.
• Request service, not consulting. For example :”   want to have a OEM partnership with X in two weeks because it is going to add 20M$ for us next year. Please handle the legal parts ASAP”
• Give the lawyers context and business reasons: what  are you trying to achieve, who is the other side, what’s the urgency, what’s the reward.
• Don’t go legal unless you have to.Risk is everywhere – bugs, features, unhappy customers. As managers we manage risk without even thinking about it. Lawyers are trained to think only about the risks and have a very strong bias against action. In decisions where risk is understood and  is small , it is better to leave legal out of the picture.
• Unless we are talking about tax or death issues , no one is going to come back to the manager 10 years from now and blame him anyway
• Insurance is a great way to quantify risk and can be used in many cases. For example , instead of  long debates on what will happen if your web site is crashed by aliens,  it is simpler to buy insurance.
• “Risk to legal department” != ”Risk to the business”
• Magic words: “I understand the risk and I accept it, If things go wrong this is my business decision”.Since most lawyers are just looking to cover their behinds, this is what they need to hear.

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Tags: ip, Lawyers, legal