The Legal Department

Attention all legal operations professionals! This episode is for you. Legal Ops consultant Lyndsey Cain of LegalEng is in The Legal Department to talk about how to make your legal tech implementation a success. From identifying a non-IT leader, knowing your goals, having a comms plan, and an ongoing governance structure, Lyndsey shares that success is more than "just the tech." She also shares tips on vendor engagement, negotiating those implementation services, and how to navigate tech updates.

Feeling like you're never going to get resources to support your legal function? Kathy Zhu has been there. Facing an endless demand for her time and limited resources to meet the business need at DoorDash, Kathy as head of Commercial Contracting, built relationships with her key customers and a process to help her team manage and communicate priorities within the company. She was so successful in showing her team's value (and their resource needs), her clients actually donated their own headcount to the legal department so she could serve them better. Seeing the value of process, tools and relationships, Kathy and her co-founder built a tool (Streamline AI) to help in-house legal departments manage their workload and generate metrics to make the case for more resources. In this episode, Kathy shares how she managed "the bottomless pit of need" using Google forms as a bush fix before Streamline AI was born. She shares:Why transparency and vulnerability are a superpower for building relationships with your key clientsHow using metrics can help you "speak CFO" and tell the story of your legal departmentWhy understanding the stage of the company and what's needed can help lawyers deliver better services

Tired of feeling like your legal department is a cost center? Fielding too many questions about the outside counsel spend, headcount and all the costs you generate? In this episode, you'll learn how to start an affirmative recovery program that can generate millions of dollars for your company. Veteran GC Andrew Johnstone, formerly in-house at Sears and US Foods, joins Greg McPolin of Burford Capital to share the "how" and "why" of building an affirmative recovery program in your in-house legal department. If you're not pursuing affirmative claims for your company, you're leaving money on the table. Tune in to learn how to generate positive cash flow and an ROI from your in-house legal work.

New to a global company? Working with lawyers in different parts of the world and struggling to connect? It's not just about understanding the language: to work cross-culturally, you need to understand the other party's culture. In this episode, Juliana Calil, former in-house attorney at Google, Intel, Disney and other big name companies shares her experience as a Brazilian lawyer learning how to practice in the US and eventually taking that experience back to Brazil. As Juliana shares, working internationally takes more than being bilingual. She shares how many of the in-house fundamentals are still key in international roles and how being curious about the other party's culture ensures success. We also tackle key differences in how US and Brazilian companies handle IP issues. Estou empolgado com isso!

Y Combinator is the tech incubator that has launched many of today's largest companies–Airbnb, DropBox, Door Dash, Open AI and many, many others. Jonathan Levy, Managing Director and former GC of YC had a role in many of them. On this episode of The Legal Department, Jonathan shares how legal can support start-up companies and help shape the future. He talks about adopting a CEO's mindset, keeping your opinions (and attitude) in check and not letter fears of what might go wrong prevent you from seeing what might go right. YC is also seeding several legal tech companies–Jonathan shares his thoughts about some of these and why they might disrupt the current market leaders. Join us for another episode on how lawyers support innovation.