Whether you want to form a legal department in your company or you would want to strengthen the one that you already have, you should consider certain factors for you to have an efficient and competent group. Having a formidable legal team like Wyllie Spears team of lawyers is essential as this can aid in business development, operations, and even sales transactions.
If you wish to have an adequate legal department your firm as your in-house counsel, or you would want to outsource a legal team from an establishment that you trust, here are some factors you may consider that your team should have:
1. Level of Knowledge and Legal Specialization
Establishing a highly competent legal team would entail looking into the legal experience of the individuals that make up your legal team. Companies usually have a general counsel, a one-person team overseeing that the entity’s transactions and systems adhere to regulations and legal requirements.
Legal teams provide critical support to a business’ general counsel, especially when the company plans to expand. The expansion involves broader specializations requiring a specific set of skills that a strong legal team can provide. Your group can be composed of lawyers experienced in intellectual property, insurance, labor relations, litigation, and dispute resolution, to name a few.
2. Adaptability to Changing Trends in the Business and Legal Field
Trends in the industry come and go, and there will always be a constant flux as to the commercial landscape, with technology and globalization as driving forces. To have a legal team that is constantly kept abreast of all these developments is essential and advantageous to your company so you would not be left behind.
An example of a constantly evolving field that significantly affects industries worldwide is international data privacy laws. Different nations have their own set of regulations regarding exchanging information that happens both online and person-to-person. Your legal team should know the current changes to data privacy laws within your state or country, as they can keep in check if your data privacy systems are secured.
3. Involvement in Business Operations
Another vital factor that you should look at when building your legal team, or strengthening an already existing one, is its involvement in the operations and day-to-day transactions inside your company.
A proactive legal team means having a readily available resource for dealing with dispute resolutions or answering legal queries. In addition to this, having your in-house legal team specifically serves as a preventive measure to ensure that your firm or business will not run into any legal troubles and that statutory provisions that pertain to business regulations should always be followed.
4. Individual Members’ Communication Skills
Good communications skills make good lawyers. With this, you need a legal team that has members who have exemplary communication skills to become great leaders and can effectively lead your other departments so that they may comply with your company’s set of standards.
A business firm’s counsel that is proactively involved in the company’s management needs to be skilled in drafting contracts as part of technical legal writing. Communications should be (1) organized, (2) simplified and not too technical, (3) reflect good personality traits, (4) audience-targeted, and (5) oriented towards problem-solving.
5. Team Longevity
A solid team can only last as long as its people will stay. Hence, it is crucial to consider when having a legal team that the individuals that are part of it are also committed and have good plans as to their tasks and functions for the long run.
Keeping your legal team together is an even more challenging task, as people change as much as the systems they thrive in. You may incorporate activities such as team-building sessions and training programs to help your legal team members grow in their professional capacities.
Development plans should also entail helping build “soft” skills for your legal teams, such as emotional intelligence skills or interpersonal communication. An excellent legal team would also gain the respect of your other officers and employees from different departments. This can ensure that transactions with your legal team will be smooth and dispute-free.
Takeaway
Quality people, skills and communication building, and expertise, to summarize, makes a legal team that your company can indeed be proud of. However, good things take time, but your legal team can indeed be a force to reckon with with proper patience and motivation.
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