Selling to a general counsel

A general counsel buys protection. If your services don't reduce risk, cost or delay for the legal function, you're selling to the wrong person.

But if they do, the GC is one of the most underworked buyers in services. Few firms bother to write to them well.

What a GC owns

The GC owns legal risk for the whole company. Contracts, litigation, regulatory exposure, privacy, employment matters, and often compliance and the board secretary role. In many companies they sit on the executive team and report to the CEO.

They own a budget too, and a big chunk of it goes to outside law firms. That's where services firms come in. Contract management systems, legal operations work, data privacy programs, e-discovery, records retention, and any technology project where legal is the bottleneck.

What they're measured on

Nothing bad happening. That's the honest version.

A GC is judged on avoiding the lawsuit, the fine, the breach that becomes a headline, and the deal that closes with a nasty clause nobody caught. They're judged on outside counsel spend, which CFOs watch closely. And they're judged on speed, since a legal team that takes three weeks to turn a sales contract becomes the excuse every other leader uses for missing a number.

So a GC listens when you talk about less exposure, lower outside spend, or faster turnaround. They tune out when you talk about innovation.

Anything that sounds like more risk. A pitch about moving fast, disrupting their workflow or replacing lawyers with software will go nowhere.

Generic legal tech outreach. GCs get a flood of it. If your note could go to any GC at any company, it will be deleted.

And notes that skip their actual situation. A GC at a company in the middle of an acquisition cares about different things than one dealing with a new privacy law in a market they just entered.

Signals worth watching

Regulatory change hits legal first. A new rule in their industry, or a new market with different privacy law, often means new programs and outside help. The post on regulatory change as a buying signal covers how to read those.

A new GC is a strong signal. New legal leaders review outside counsel panels, legal tech and processes in their first 90 days, and they want early wins.

Hiring for legal operations is a quiet one. A company that posts for a legal ops manager or a contracts analyst is building the function and usually needs help setting it up. Job posts that name a contract lifecycle platform tell you what they run.

Acquisitions and divestitures pile work on legal. So do risk factor changes in a 10-K, especially new language about data privacy, litigation or compliance programs.

An opener for a GC

Be precise and calm. GCs read carefully, and they'll notice any overreach.

Saw the 10-K added a risk factor on data privacy in the new European markets, and the legal team posted for a privacy counsel and a legal ops lead. Coming into the GC seat this spring, I'd guess the hard part is building the program fast without the outside counsel bill doubling. Is that roughly right, or is the bigger concern somewhere else?

That note names facts, connects them to their seat, and offers a hypothesis they can correct in one line.

The GC is often the economic buyer for legal work, but rarely the only voice. Legal ops leads are frequently the champion, and they care about process and tools. The CIO or a security lead is usually the technical voice for anything involving systems or data.

Write to each of them with their own angle. The legal ops lead cares about workflow and intake. The technical lead cares about integration and security reviews. The GC cares about risk and cost.

What to avoid

Don't promise outcomes you can't control. "Reduce litigation" is a promise no services firm can keep, and a GC knows it.

Don't send a deck in the first note. Don't ask for thirty minutes to "explore synergies." And don't name other clients without permission. A GC will notice the confidentiality slip before anything else you wrote.

Talk about risk, cost and speed in plain words. That's the language a GC already uses.