Legal is not Your Enemy

First and foremost, I am not a lawyer — and since I am not a lawyer this article is not legal advice. Everything I say is based on my own experiences and not a reflection of anything a lawyer has ever said to me or their opinions. Now that we got that out of the way…

I extend the advice in this article to other functions in your business that are meant to protect you and your company, such as compliance, governance, information security, etc. These functions, and ultimately the people, are resources to help and protect you. Throughout this blog, I’ll refer to Legal as this expanded group of people.

Being in data in 2024 is challenging. The legal landscape is evolving rapidly with

• Rapidly changing privacy laws
• Public and regulator interests in AI are evolving at a helter-skelter pace

The above means that you should probably consult legal on that hot new project you’ve been telling everyone about. Considering this I would like to share my recipe for success in getting the OK from legal on that project.

It’s easy. Be their friend.

Easy you say? Yes. They are people just like you and they have feelings. Like any other interaction with your family, friends, or significant others — the key is understanding the feelings and challenges they’re experiencing in their roles and communicating with them on that level.

Well, how do I do that you say? There are 4 key practices you can learn to improve your relationship with legal and to increase your success in getting what you need to do your job. These key things build trust and ultimately friendship.

Be Transparent

The first thing you should do is be honest about what you need and what you want to accomplish. Omitting facts or misrepresenting what you are doing diminishes trust when they surface. Their job is to protect you and the company, and if they do not fully understand what you are doing they cannot give you accurate guidance. Breaking trust through dishonesty is the fastest way to always be told No because they think you are omitting facts. Reputation can take years to build and only minutes to destroy.

Details Details Details…

Legal is often very busy. They may or may not understand your job or the technology you use. Showing up to the meeting with specific details on what you need and what you are doing will help them rapidly focus on their concerns. This will help you quickly focus on key challenges. This will build trust by letting them know that you know what you are doing. Also, if they believe you are detail-oriented they are more likely to give you time when you ask for it as they know you won’t waste their time.

Understand their Challenges

As I started this article off by saying: The Data space is incredibly challenging today due to rapidly changing laws and evolving public interest. Taking a moderate amount of time to make yourself aware of these laws and the hot topics of public interest will not only help you prepare for your meeting with legal, but build their trust by showing that you care about their concerns and that you have preemptively addressed them. A great side benefit is that you can now talk in their language and learn from them. It is a bit shocking (lol no) how fast they can engage you in conversation when you can hang with them on a topic they know well and most likely love. This builds trust.

Getting to Yes through Compromise

Now for what you don’t want to hear. You may frankly get a hard NO if your ask is illegal or breaches a contract. You also may get an initial NO if you are not trusted to hold to your word on a complex ask. Understand that they are doing their job. YOUR JOB is to come prepared and understand they may respond to your ask by asking where you can or are willing to compromise to get to a yes. This is where transparency is key too. Letting legal know that you need to get to a yes, why you need to get to a yes, and that you are willing to work with them to get there will often open them up more to work with you on getting to a Yes that you can both work with. Learning when and how to compromise builds trust. This trust can be leveraged to ask legal to say yes on more complex tasks in the future that arrive at a Yes with less compromise.

These 4 key things have given me the magical ability to not only get what I need done but gotten me to Yes quickly and more often than my peers. Building a strong friendship, which is ultimately trust and respect, will make you more effective in your job and will open new doors. It is surprising how many of your peers start coming to you for help when they learn you know how to get legal to say Yes. The inverse is also true.

If legal trusts you — it is surprising how willing legal can be to ask you for help when dealing with a complex challenge with one of your peers.

Being trusted by your peers and legal to get to a Yes is powerful. It means the problem they’re both bringing to you to solve is a bit hairy — but also important to your company which is what Data people live for.