The job is not producing legal advice. It is building the team that produces it.
I work with General Counsel on the unglamorous work of building legal teams that operate as the business functions they are.
Managing Director, Swiftwater & Company · Twenty years across Mitratech, Morae Global, Huron
The Team Is the Job
Most General Counsel don’t have a function problem. They have a team problem. And every attempt to solve it with tools, with new hires in the wrong structure, or with another consulting diagnostic will continue to fail until that shifts.
Over twenty years in this work across Mitratech, Morae Global, Huron, and now Swiftwater & Company, I have come to believe that the job of a General Counsel is not what most General Counsel were trained for. It is not producing the legal advice. It is building the team that produces it. What follows is the essay that names what I actually believe the work is.
Recent Writing
Seventy articles and counting. The through-line is team, not technology.
What Is Legal Operations Consulting?
Legal operations consulting is not technology selection. It is the design of how a legal department actually operates. This piece unpacks what a serious engagement should deliver and how to tell a legal operations consulting partner from a legal technology vendor.
How Do You Build a Legal Spend Management Program?
Most legal departments have spend tracking. Very few have spend management. A roadmap for moving from reviewing invoices after the fact to controlling what will be spent before it is incurred.
10 Contract Lifecycle Management Best Practices for 2026
Most organizations treat contract management as a storage problem. The programs that actually work treat it as a governance problem with a technology layer on top. Ten practices that separate functioning CLM programs from platform graveyards.
No Objections Podcast
A podcast with General Counsel about the work of advising at the frontier, where business models are emerging and legal has to help the business step into the unknown, often with little or no precedent to lean on.
Conversations with General Counsel navigating AI agents, autonomous systems, synthetic biology, and business models that did not exist when the law was written. First season features General Counsel from global companies across mobility, energy, industrials, and media.
Get notified when the first episode releases.
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