In-house Counsel Strategy Checklist
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Who does this impact/who is involved?
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What is the business trying to accomplish here? How can Legal help?
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Does this maximize value creation/minimize value destruction?
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How does this fit into the company’s strategy?
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What’s the game theory here? If we do this:
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What happens in the short term?
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What happens in the long term?
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Is there a pattern behind this problem/issue? Can we fix/change it?
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What are the benefits/risks of doing this? How much will it cost?
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Is this something that will make customers or vendors upset/bring on litigation?
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Is this something that if it becomes public or goes “badly” could damage the reputation/stock price of the company?
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Even if we can do this legally, should we?
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Is this covered by any specific law or regulation?
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Will any regulator care if we/they do this? How would we respond if they do?
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Can we use legal tactics/government affairs to legally advance our interests/stop this? Should we?
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Have our competitors/anyone done this or faced this before – what did they do? What happened?
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What is the craziest "what if" I can come up with here? Why would/wouldn't that work?
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Who in the company needs to know about this?
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Is this something that could injure someone?
*Reprinted with permission from Sterling Miller’s Ten Things You Need to Know as In-House Counsel blog post “Ten Things: The ‘Strategic’ In-House Lawyer” (December 2019).
