Third-generation entrepreneur. Two decades in legal.
I help General Counsel modernize the legal function their businesses actually need.
Years ago, interviewing for a senior role, I was asked to describe my work ethic. I said I grew up with entrepreneurial blood in my veins. That I could lead, and I could roll up my sleeves and get the work done. That answer came from somewhere.
I am a third-generation entrepreneur. My father ran businesses across several industries, and decisions got made with imperfect information at the kitchen table.
What you learn, growing up like that, is how to do more with less, how to wear multiple hats, and how to make decisions when you do not have all the information. Perfect training, it turns out, for the work I ended up doing.
The room where it started.
Before legal, I worked at ICI, now AkzoNobel, and Siemens. My first exposure to enterprise problems, and to standing in front of senior decision-makers. Groundwork for an advisory career, though I did not know to call it that at the time.
The light bulb went on in an auditorium at an oil and gas company. My senior was presenting. Somewhere in the middle of the session he lost his footing and had to stop. The project manager turned to me and asked me to take over. Not because I was senior. Because I had done the grunt work preparing the material and I knew the content cold.
I still remember the room. Client teams seated in clusters by department. Sharp spotlights. I remember the Q&A being brutal. But, I remember the clapping at the end.
I do not remember the client leader’s name. I remember her calling my boss afterward and saying “this kid did good, take care of him.”
That was the moment. Everything I had been absorbing at home, about doing more with less, about showing up when the circumstances are against you, about overdelivering when you have no permission to fail, arrived on that stage. I have been doing a version of that work ever since.
Twenty years in legal.
I started at Huron in 2005. Legal operations was not yet a defined category. CLOC did not exist. “Legal operations professional” was not yet a title on anyone’s business card. But a handful of General Counsel could see what was coming, and they were looking for help building what they were calling, at the time, “law departments of the future.” A utility company in Indiana. An insurance company in Chicago. A few others. Real pioneers who wanted a real transformation.
We started from the people. Got the team right. Then the processes. Then, eventually, the technology. The data and analytics were an aspiration more than a capability in those early years, but the instinct was correct. I remember telling clients who wanted to benchmark against other legal departments that they were asking the wrong question. Benchmark against functions that were more advanced than legal. Finance, HR, IT. That is what you should aspire to. That is where the playbook lives.
At Morae Global, where I joined as a founding member, we were already working on a 3.0 version of legal transformation. BigLaw was still resisting any real change to its cost structure, so we built what we called, at the time, an ALSP with an advisory arm. In today’s parlance it would be called a law company. I traveled the globe selling the idea. One week I found myself in Kuala Lumpur, Charles de Gaulle, and Chicago inside seven days. Different continents, different clients, same underlying problem. And, in every room, the same genuine desire to elevate and mature the team.
Between Morae and Mitratech, I founded Transformlytics. A startup building analytics products to solve a problem I had been watching from the consulting side for years. How do you make decisions at the speed of business? How do you make the information available as the work happens, instead of three weeks later when the reporting cycle catches up? The venture did not become the main chapter, but the work shaped how I think about data infrastructure as the foundation of any function that wants to operate as a business.
At Mitratech, I had the chance to meld two things I care about, teams and technology. Mitratech was an Ontario Teachers’ portfolio company, one of the largest private equity firms in the world, and they were looking to grow. My mission was to partner with the best minds, technologies, and solutions to help expand the offering. I sat with hyperscalers, Big Four consulting partners, AmLaw firm partners, and corporate law departments of every size, from small and mid-size to Fortune- and Global-ranked. It was a unique seat to learn from and to help shape where this market is going.
Until Swiftwater came calling.
Now.
At Swiftwater & Company, I lead practitioner delivery. Our work is helping General Counsel and their leadership teams elevate the team and build the operating model their business actually requires.
The central idea I keep returning to, the one I lay out at length in Modernizing the Office of General Counsel, is that the legal function today’s businesses need is a different function from the one most General Counsel were hired to lead. Building it, while the existing function still has to run, is the leadership work that defines the next generation of General Counsel.
My work is helping General Counsel see what is actually underneath the legal function and build the team that makes it work. The discipline is the one I grew up on: do more with less, decide with imperfect information, and pivot when the business changes underneath you. Legal is finally being asked to operate that way, and the departments that learn to are the ones the business will plan around.
Legal Industry Experience
Conversations on stages, podcasts, and in print.
I’ve been on the legal industry’s significant stages for the better part of a decade. From keynoting Mitratech’s flagship Interact conference in 2016 to panels at Legalweek, ACC Legal Ops Con, CLOC Talk, the Wolters Kluwer ELM Amplify conference, and Running Legal Like a Business. The conversations have covered legal technology adoption, outside counsel management, change leadership, and the future of the in-house legal function. What follows is a selected record.
Featured Speaking
Mitratech Interact 2016. Keynote (Miami, “Catching the Wave”)
You’ve Caught the Wave, Now What? Critical Steps for Maximum Adoption and ROI
Keynote speaker at Mitratech’s flagship annual conference. Represented Morae Legal.
Legalweek 2023. Panel Host
The Great Beyond: Life After Go-Live with HBR
New York. Hosted as Mitratech’s Director of Legal Solutions Partners, alongside Eric Paul (AT&T), Adina Newman (Consolidated Edison), and Anuj Patel (HBR Consulting). Part of Mitratech’s Legal Ops Track.
Mitratech Interact 2018
Automating Legal Service Request to Increase Customer Satisfaction and Operational Efficiency
As Managing Director at Morae Global, leading the Technology-Enabled Transformation practice. Fairmont Austin.
ACC Legal Ops Con 2024
Panel on benchmarking and presenting influential data to leadership, with Sarah Fercho (Target), Greg Witczak (formerly Deutsche Bank), and Kyle Bahr. Hilton Chicago.
Put Data First Conference 2025
Sponsor and speaker on data-driven innovation in legal operations. Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas. With Imran Jaswal.
Running Legal Like a Business 2025
Industry participant and contributor at RLLB 2025, connecting with legal operations leaders including Connie Brenton (founder of CLOC) across the industry’s leadership community.
LexisNexis Corporate Legal Conference 2018 (CLConf18), Chicago, September 2018
Presented survey research on how law departments manage service requests. Representing Morae Global as Managing Director of Technology-Enabled Transformation.
Wolters Kluwer ELM Amplify (Huron era)
Panel appearance with Natalie Ponder.
CLOC Global Institute
Recurring presence as attendee and sponsor across multiple years, including booth host with Onit.
Podcast Conversations
3 Geeks and a Law Blog (September 2025)
Pit Crews, Seven C’s, and AI
With Marlene Gebauer (K&L Gates) and Greg Lambert (Jackson Walker), alongside Mirat Dave of Swiftwater. A conversation on how corporate investigations and legal operations should function as strategic business enablers.
CLOC Talk (May 2023)
The Magic of Collaboration
With host Jenn McCarron of the CLOC Board.
Legal Operators Webinar
Featured webinar appearance covering legal operations practice.
Selected Webinars
Co-led webinars with Onit, Clearlaw, Prokurio, and industry partners on:
| Change Leadership: Why Change Management Fails and How to Fix It, with Joe Leno | ▶ YouTube |
| Corporate Investigations: Unlocking Value from Intake to Reporting, two-part series with Onit | ▶ YouTube |
| CLM Selection: Three Perspectives, with Daniel Dzialga (Mattel) and Hans Bengard | ▶ YouTube |
| The Future of Law and Legal Operations, with Charles Bowen (Georgia State University) | |
| IP Budgeting: Trick or Treat, with Prokurio | |
| Contract Data: Unearthing Hidden Insights, with Clearlaw | |
| Transforming Legal Operations: Creating the Business Case for Legal Technology |
Published Work
In addition to writing regularly at swiftwaterco.com, contributions have included:
- ACC Value Challenge – Knowledge Management, published in ACC’s Value Challenge Toolkit
- ACC Resource Library – Document Management, Contract Management, Records Management, and Knowledge Management Systems: What Are They, What Do They Do, and What Are the Differences?
Selected Media
- Law360 Pulse – Quoted by Steven Lerner in Legal Depts Play Catch Up As Law Firms Embrace Innovation
Five questions I keep returning to.
Over seventy articles and two decades of engagements, the same five questions show up in every modern legal function. The departments that have answered all five operate as the business function the rest of the company plans around.
Operating model. How can the legal department operate as a business function? The modernized version runs a defined operating model, a coordinated team behind it, and a senior bench built to deliver against what the business actually needs.
Language. How can the legal department answer to the business in the business’s language? The modernized version walks into the CFO with a baseline and a forecast, into the CEO with a board-ready view of legal value, and into the business presidents with the answer to their question.
Governance. How can the legal department govern how work flows in, through, and out? The modernized version has standard intake, matter budgets, defined handoffs, and clear escalation paths. Work arrives, gets routed, gets done, and closes on a schedule the business can plan around.
Spend. How can the legal department control what it spends and justify it? The modernized version produces a baseline, a forecast, a variance, and a benchmark, and can justify how outside counsel was used and what value was returned. Tens of millions of dollars sit in that difference for any legal department above a billion in revenue.
Implementation. How can the legal department implement technology and AI in a way that changes how work gets done? The modernized version designs the operating model first, picks the platform to fit, and treats AI as a junior resource on the bench, capable of taking on first-draft work and expanding the leverage of the senior lawyers.
These are the questions I keep returning to in every engagement, regardless of company size, sector, or starting maturity. The order matters. Operating model is the foundation. The other four are what an operating function delivers.
Read the full essay: Modernizing the Office of General Counsel →
If you’re building something.
If you are a General Counsel trying to make sense of why the work feels heavier than it should, I would like to hear from you.
If you are a legal operations leader looking for a thought partner on the structural parts of the operating model, same.
If you are a GC who recognizes the central idea and wants to talk about what it might mean for your function specifically, we can have that conversation too.
Contact channels:
For General Counsel and legal leadership teams: hello@danishbutt.legal
For speaking inquiries: speaking@danishbutt.legal
For podcast guest inquiries (No Objections Podcast, launching 2026): podcast@danishbutt.legal
Or connect on LinkedIn: