Group Legal Policy (General)

The Group Legal Policy (GLP) asset sets out the legal & compliance profile that the Business has decided must be secured and maintained to ensure safe, effective and compliant operations of the Business. 

The GLP, along with Legal Department Operation Authority and Legal Dept SLA is the one of the 3 “apex” policy assets that determine the overall mandate, function and operations of the legal department. 

Reflecting the Businesses assessment of prevailing laws & regulations, market & industry practices, along with the Businesses appetite for risk, the GLP defines the Business’ “safe operational zone.”

As with the Business’ operating environment, the GLP is necessarily dynamic in nature and requires frequent updating in response to new laws, market practices and availability of risk mitigating techniques. 

Wherever a legal and compliance obligation and/or legal risk exists, the GLP will stipulate the position (which might be a range of best through to worst), the Business will need to secure to compliance accordingly.

A policy encompasses a set of guidelines, procedures, and best practices that ensure all business operations adhere to legal and regulatory requirements. 

The GLP’s criticality to overall legal departments optimised performance cannot possibly be underestimated – it will directly influence every aspect of legal team operations.

The GLP is the Achilles heel of most legal teams – its frequent absence/ sub-optimal condition - has material, identifiable and continuing adverse performance implications for every aspect of in-house operations. 

The content of the GLP will ultimately evolve to cover all legal & compliance risk issues over which the legal team has the ability to influence. However, the basic infrastructure of the GLP will include chapters on:

◼️ Part 1 - Third Party Dealings: protocols for contractual dealings with third parties

◼️ Part 2 - Market Risks: management of risks associated with specific markets

◼️ Part 3 - Corporate Governance: protocols to deliver appropriate corporate governance

◼️ Part 4 - Internal - Operational Risks: management of unique internal operating risks

◼️ Part 5 - Tax Risks: protocols that support an optimised tax strategy

◼️ Part 6 - Intellectual Property Management: the management and monetisation of IPR

◼️ Part 7 - Regulatory / Compliance Risk: efficient management of compliance obligations

◼️ Part 8 - Insurance Risks: protocols that navigate and protect insurable risk scenarios

◼️ Part 9 - Claims Management: the efficient detection and management of claims

◼️ Part 10 - Systems and Data Management: tech and information law positions

In GLS legal ops speak – the GLP CRE is considered both a “Foundational” and “Repeater” resource within the process ecosystem of an in-house legal team.

The Foundational Resource is a CRE that is responsible for determining the overall performance capabilities of a “critical” legal function. If it is not optimised, the function can never be optimised. 

A Repeater Resources is a CRE that is common to two or more “critical legal dept. functions”. Once optimised, this CRE can improve all critical legal functions in which it is comprised. 

The GLP is perhaps the best example of “the most critical” Foundational Resources. 

The best practice features of the GLP are as follows: 

◼️ 80% Rule: the GLP should only seek to define what happens 80% of the time, not every time

◼️ Written: the GLP must be documented – if it isn’t – then it is not a GLP

◼️ Efficacy: the GLP need not cover every conceivable issue before it can be efficiently deployed

◼️ Positions: the GLP ideally expresses a “range” of permissible outcomes. 

◼️ Access: the GLP is and should remain a “restricted access” document

◼️ Compliance: GLP compliance must be monitored by the legal team

◼️ Development: the GLS should be continuously updated (eg. legal updates, user feedback)

◼️ Endorsement: the GLP will take its authority from Board endorsement

◼️ Balanced: the GLP must focus on balanced industry risk positions 

◼️ Short: the GLP should be as short as possible to maintain its user usefulness

The GLP delivers the following value to the Business: 

◼️ Biz Enablement: the GLP should deliver safe but effective “business enablement” 

◼️ Risk Management: the GLP helps the Business avoid known and unnecessary risks

◼️ Operational Clarity: helps deliver legal and compliance operational clarity

◼️ Board Duties: helps the board discharge their duty to act in the best interests of the company

◼️ Profitability: helps preserve profitability by mitigating dispute/regulatory non-compliance

◼️ Corporate Conduct: drives the highest levels of corporate governance and conduct

◼️ Legal Empowerment: the GLP ensures the role of legal is empowered

The GLP delivers the following value for the Legal Department:

◼️ Mandate: the GLP clarifies the contours of the legal teams operational mandate

◼️ Role Recognition: clarifies the role of the legal department within the Business

◼️ Empowerment: the GLP helps empower the legal within the Business with c 

◼️ Resourcing: a clear GLP helps inform legal department resourcing requirements 

◼️ Prioritization: the GLP is the reference point from which resourcing priorities are made

◼️ Legal Dept Design:  can shape legal dept. design & architecture

◼️ Morale: clear JD certainty contributes to purposefulness which drives team morale 

◼️ Budgeting: a properly articulated GLP drives more accurate legal dept budget assessment

◼️ BU Co-operation: helps to clearly set legal department boundaries 

◼️ Tech Adoption: the GLP will provide the rules needed for future tech adoption

The Group Legal Policy is essential for:

◼️ All Businesses: every business faces legal risk and needs a GLP to manage the same

◼️ Legal Operations Teams: Given efficient expression to the GLP is the legal ops sole mandate 

◼️ In-House Counsels: The GLP is the “target” board for all legal team activities.

◼️ Compliance Officers: The GLP is the “target” board for all compliance team activities.

◼️ Senior Management: The GLP is where management defines the legal risk profile of the business. 

A legal team operating without a GLP will face a wide range of inefficiencies including:

◼️ Inconsistency: inconsistent approach by the legal team to common legal & compliance issues

◼️ Delegation: a distinct inability to delegate work to junior team members

◼️ Time Cost: the time cost of legal support for teams without a GLS grows increasingly

◼️ Risk Costs: the cost associated with risks that “manifest” due to no/poor GLP can be extremely high

◼️ Tech Adoption: an impaired ability to embrace legal tech that relies on defined positions

◼️ Process Adoption: an inability to delegate workflows to established and approved processes

◼️ Resourcing: an impaired ability to resource plan due unclear positions & associated work effort

◼️ Training & Development: an impaired ability to train in relation to required positions 

◼️ Prioritization: impaired resource prioritisation capabilities due to unclear GLP priorities 

◼️ Morale: deteriorating team morale due to positional clarity  

◼️ Bottlenecking: increased risks of workflow bottlenecking with senior team members 

◼️ Budgeting: a properly articulated GLP drives more accurate legal dept budget assessment

◼️ BU Co-operation: increased potential “border” skirmishes” with neighbouring business functions 

◼️ Housing: the GLP should be housed electronically and subject to user access restrictions (no hard copies)

◼️ Legal Tech Configuration: the GLP will be the basis upon which most legal tech applications will be configured (e.g. CLMS, MLM, A.I. Contract Review, Document Automation, etc)

◼️ Tech Policies: the GLP will contain policies around information management, cyber security and Data protection, amongst other tech-enabled/related domains

◼️ Tech Strategy: the above-mentioned policies will impact, to varying degrees, the Business operational approach to ensure associated risks are maintained 

The GLS Knowledge Centre has a wealth of resources available for learning more about the importance of the Group Legal Policy and how you can effectively implement one - check out a few on the right.

The GLS Legal Operations Centre contains everything you need to effectively implement your own tailored Group Legal Policy in a cost-effective and timely manner. Check out the resources linked on the right. 

Also, feel free to contact GLS to book a consult to discuss your Group Legal Policy needs right here.