Building an In-House Legal Team Is Tough but Reaps Many Rewards

Building a legal department from scratch is no joke. You’re likely juggling a lot of competing priorities, from keeping the business running to cleaning up the inevitable little messes from the pre-lawyer era, to learning the company’s goals and budget—all while figuring out how to thrive in a new organization.

It’s a challenge, but it’s also a huge opportunity, because you get to determine what the legal department looks like now and start to shape its future. Here are some best practices for starting strong.

Begin with the company’s goals, then build legal’s around them. You know you want a high-performing legal team, but “high-performing” only means something in context. The legal department is high performing when it drives success for the company.

When you join a company, it’s tempting to dive straight into doing things such as creating processes, hiring outside counsel, or rolling out templates and standard operating procedures. But you’ll be more effective if you pause first. The most effective in-house teams aren’t just generically great—they are great at advancing the company’s priorities.

Spend time learning what matters most to the business and its leadership, then define legal’s goals in direct support of those priorities. Once both big-picture and legal department goals are clear and established, you can start designing every part of your department, from structure and systems to strategy, in a way that drives maximum impact.

Invest time to save time. As the first legal hire, you’ll be busy. And when you’re buried in urgent requests, it’s easy to let the proactive project that takes time upfront but pays off later slip through the cracks. But this is one of those times when extra effort now can dramatically lighten your load later.

Once you know what you’re building toward, make time to streamline and scale. Document repeatable processes and build templates for high-volume work. Make routine tasks self-service where you can. This helps you create space and time for your future self (and your future team) to focus on high-impact work.

Leverage technology and alternative legal support. You may have been hired as a legal department of one, but that doesn’t mean you have to build entirely on your own. Before you add headcount, explore tools and external partners that can amplify your impact without increasing fixed costs.

Start with technology. Lifecycle management tools, e-signature platforms, and a tool for streamlining legal requests can automate repetitive work and create visibility across the business. In a startup, even lightweight solutions that may be in your current tech stack—such as shared dashboards, template libraries, or automated intake forms—can free up significant time.

Then, look at alternative support models. Fractional lawyers, outside counsel on retainers, and alternative legal service providers can help you scale capacity without taking on permanent hires. They’re especially valuable for project-based or high-volume work or when you need a specialized skill set but not a full-time role. Plus, this flexible support may help you build a case for additional in-house hires in the future.

The key is to design your support system with intention. This lets you keep the team lightweight and the budget in check.

Hire slowly and for the right attributes. When it’s time to add full-time employees to your legal team, make sure you’re intentional about onboarding the right people for the right reasons. Hiring a young legal department is about adding capacity, but it’s also about shaping the team.

Look for people who are both capable and scrappy—the ones who will roll up their sleeves, adapt quickly, and do whatever it takes to move the business forward. Ensure you’re hiring people who will help you support and grow the business, rather than just resume prestige.

At the same time, resist the urge to hire people whose professional backgrounds or approaches are identical to your own. The best small teams are built around complementary strengths.

Above all, hire for mindset. Technical skills and legal substance can be taught. But attitude, curiosity, and ownership are much more difficult to teach and are characteristics that a motivated lawyer—even one without much prior training—can show up with on day one.

You want to hire the type of lawyer who does what they can to improve themselves, before relying on you to teach them. Bringing the right mindset and set of soft skills is evidence that they have already invested in themselves, and likely will continue doing so.

A deliberate hiring process may take longer, but the payoff of a tight, capable team that amplifies your strengths and shares your drive is worth the wait.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.

Author Information

Heather Stevenson is general counsel at Red Cell Partners. Earlier in her career, she left Big Law to found a juice bar before returning to practice as an in-house lawyer.

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