The stereotypes about in-house legal departments are well established: chief financial officers see the legal department as a cost center, marketing and sales departments see the legal department as a hurdle that causes delays and stifles creativity, human resources sees the legal department as the creator of verbose policies, and most everyone else becomes spooked by the presence of an attorney. As these stereotypes persist, in-house counsel struggle to convince executives to invest in their departments. During the budgeting process, general counsels frequently only receive two directives: (1) reduce in-house labor costs, and (2) reduce outside counsel costs. An underused third and more productive directive exists: grow the business.
Growing the business from inside a non-revenue generating department can be challenging. In-house counsel cannot simply sell their legal services to outside organizations. Fortunately, a growing trend in corporate leadership philosophy, “servant-leadership,” provides in-house counsel with a pathway to drive results. Moreover, in-house counsel are uniquely situated in an organization’s structure and uniquely trained to execute servant-leadership successfully.