The Group Legal Policy (GLP) is the legal department’s strategic blueprint - a clear articulation of what the legal team exists to achieve for the business. It defines the team’s mandate, its service delivery principles, and the risk posture it is expected to uphold. It is the operational “safe zone” within which legal services are delivered, both internally and externally.

For external providers - especially law firms - the GLP is the key to understanding how to support the in-house team effectively. Without it, law firms are left guessing what “value” looks like. With it, they can align their efforts with the legal team’s priorities, risk appetite, and service expectations. This alignment is essential to delivering efficient, outcome-driven legal support.

Internally, the GLP empowers the legal team to allocate resources strategically, say “no” to misaligned work, and measure performance against agreed objectives. It provides clarity to business units about what legal support they can expect, and under what conditions.

In short, the GLP is the legal team’s constitution. It governs how legal services are delivered, ensures alignment with business strategy, and enables external providers to contribute meaningfully to the legal team’s success.

The scope of the Group Legal Policy includes:

◼️Mandate Definition: Clearly articulates the legal team’s purpose, priorities, and service remit.

◼️Risk Posture: Sets out the business’s agreed legal and compliance risk tolerance.

◼️Service Delivery Principles: Defines expectations around responsiveness, cost-efficiency, and collaboration.

◼️External Provider Alignment: Requires law firms and other providers to understand and operate within the GLP framework.

◼️Internal Resource Allocation: Guides how legal resources are deployed across business units and projects.

◼️Performance Measurement: Establishes benchmarks for evaluating legal team and provider effectiveness.

◼️Governance & Approval: Typically endorsed by senior leadership to ensure enterprise-wide alignment.

◼️Training & Communication: Disseminated across the business and to external providers to ensure consistent understanding.

In GLS legal ops speak – the Group Legal Policy is considered a “Foundational” 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. 

The best practice features of the Group Legal Policy are as follows:

◼️Board-Endorsed Mandate: Approved by senior leadership to ensure legitimacy and alignment.

◼️Accessible Format: Presented in a clear, digestible format that can be easily understood by business units and providers.

◼️Provider Integration: Shared with all external counsel as part of onboarding and engagement processes.

◼️Risk Calibration: Includes a detailed articulation of acceptable legal and compliance risk levels.

◼️Service Standards: Defines expectations around turnaround times, communication, and cost management.

◼️Review Cycle: Updated annually to reflect changes in business strategy, legal landscape, or team capacity.

◼️Training Modules: Accompanied by internal training to ensure consistent application across the business.

◼️Operational Linkage: Tied to other legal operations tools such as the Legal Services Request Form and Preferred Provider Framework.

The Group Legal Policy delivers the following value to the Business:

◼️Strategic Clarity: Ensures the legal team is focused on business-critical priorities.

◼️Risk Management: Aligns legal support with the business’s agreed risk appetite.

◼️Efficiency Gains: Reduces wasted effort by preventing misaligned legal work.

◼️Provider Effectiveness: Enables law firms to deliver more targeted, relevant support.

◼️Budget Justification: Helps explain legal spend in terms of strategic outcomes.

◼️Faster Decision-Making: Provides a framework for quick, confident legal decisions.

◼️Empowered Resource Allocation: Enables the legal team to prioritise work based on strategic fit.

◼️Reduced Scope Creep: Prevents the team from being pulled into non-strategic or low-value work.

◼️Improved Provider Collaboration: Ensures law firms understand the team’s goals and constraints.

◼️Enhanced Internal Credibility: Positions the legal team as a strategic enabler, not just a reactive service.

◼️Performance Benchmarking: Provides a basis for evaluating internal and external legal performance.

◼️Operational Consistency: Creates a unified approach to legal service delivery across the organisation.

The Group Legal Policy is essential for:

◼️General Counsel

◼️Heads of Legal Operations

◼️Legal Team Leads

◼️Procurement and Vendor Management Teams

◼️CFOs seeking legal spend accountability

A legal team operating without a Group Legal Policy will face a wide range of inefficiencies including:

◼️Misaligned Legal Support: Providers deliver work that doesn’t reflect business priorities.

◼️Scope Creep: Legal resources are consumed by low-value or non-strategic tasks.

◼️Poor Risk Management: Inconsistent approaches to legal and compliance risk.

◼️Budget Vulnerability: Difficulty justifying legal spend without a strategic framework.

◼️Fragmented Service Delivery: Lack of consistency across legal engagements.

◼️Weak Provider Engagement: Law firms operate without clear direction or expectations.

While the Group Legal Policy is not inherently a technology-based station, it impacts the broader tech environment by:

◼️Informing Legal Tech Deployment: Helps determine which tools support the GLP’s service delivery principles.

◼️Embedding in Onboarding Platforms: Can be integrated into provider onboarding systems and internal training portals.

◼️Supporting Workflow Automation: Enables automation of legal service requests based on GLP-defined priorities.

◼️Enhancing Reporting Tools: Provides context for performance dashboards and spend analytics.