Speed vs Defensibility: Where In-House Legal Credibility Is Won or Lost

Introduction: The False Choice Legal Is Forced to Make

Every in-house legal team hears the same demand:

“We need legal to move faster.”

It is rarely framed as a suggestion.

Speed is presented as:

◼️A commercial necessity

◼️A competitive requirement

◼️A cultural expectation

And legal leaders respond - often instinctively -by trying to comply.

They sit in meetings.

They give answers in the room.

They shorten review cycles.

They reduce formality.

In the short term, this feels like progress.

But this is where many legal teams quietly lose credibility.

Because speed and defensibility are not opposites - but they are not the same thing either.

And when speed is pursued without structure, defensibility collapses.

What “Speed” Actually Means in Legal

In most organisations, speed does not mean excellence.

It means:

◼️Fewer written records

◼️Less structured analysis

◼️Verbal advice replacing documented decisions

◼️Risk trade-offs left implicit

Speed becomes shorthand for less friction.

The problem is that friction is often where risk is surfaced.

What Defensibility Actually Means

Defensibility is not about being conservative.

It is about being able to explain, later:

◼️What decision was made

◼️On what basis

◼️With what risks identified

◼️And who owned the call

Defensibility is what matters when:

◼️Regulators ask questions

◼️Auditors review decisions

◼️Disputes arise

◼️Boards seek accountability

Speed wins applause.

Defensibility wins survival.

How Legal Loses Credibility (Quietly)

The most dangerous failure mode is not legal saying “no”.

It is legal saying “yes” -without structure.

1. Advice Given in the Room, Lost in Time

Legal advice delivered verbally:

◼️Leaves no record

◼️Creates no precedent

◼️Provides no audit trail

Months later, no one remembers the context.

Only the outcome.

2. Risk Trade-Offs Go Unrecorded

Many fast decisions involve conscious trade-offs.

But when those trade-offs are not documented:

◼️They appear accidental

◼️They appear negligent

◼️They appear indefensible

What was reasonable at the time becomes impossible to justify later.

3. Legal Becomes the Scapegoat

When something goes wrong, the question is not:

“Why did the business take this risk?”

It becomes:

“Why didn’t legal stop this?”

Speed without structure turns legal into a liability.

Why This Problem Gets Worse as Organisations Grow

Small organisations survive on informal decision-making.

Large organisations cannot.

As scale increases:

◼️Decision volume rises

◼️Personnel changes increase

◼️Memory fragments

◼️Scrutiny intensifies

What worked informally at 50 people breaks at 5,000.

Speed scales badly.

Defensibility scales well -if designed.

The Cultural Trap: Speed as Virtue Signalling

In many organisations, speed becomes performative.

Fast decisions are celebrated.

Caution is framed as obstruction.

This creates a perverse incentive:

◼️Lawyers feel pressure to answer immediately

◼️Uncertainty is hidden

◼️Escalation is avoided

The culture rewards decisiveness, not judgment.

That is how risk accumulates silently.

The Board Reality

Boards rarely ask:

“How fast did legal move?”

They ask:

“How did we end up here?”

When legal cannot reconstruct its advice:

◼️Authority erodes

◼️Trust weakens

◼️Independence is questioned

Speed does not protect legal at Board level.

Defensibility does.

The False Binary: Speed or Defensibility

The idea that legal must choose between speed and defensibility is false.

The real choice is between:

◼️Unstructured speed

◼️Designed speed

Designed speed builds defensibility into fast decision-making.

What Designed Speed Looks Like in Practice

Designed speed does not mean more process.

It means the right structure.

1. Lightweight Decision Records

◼️Brief written summaries

◼️Clear articulation of risks

◼️Named decision owners

Not legal memos.

Decision memory.

2. Explicit Risk-Based Playbooks

◼️What can move fast

◼️What must slow down

◼️What always escalates

Speed becomes predictable, not personal.

3. Clear Ownership of Risk

Legal advises.

The business decides.

That distinction must be explicit.

4. Escalation as Design, Not Failure

Fast escalation is a feature, not a flaw.

If escalation is slow or political, speed becomes reckless.

The Hard Truth

Legal credibility is not lost when legal slows things down.

It is lost when legal cannot explain what happened.

Speed without defensibility is a short-term win and a long-term failure.

Final Thoughts: Choose the Right Kind of Speed

In-house legal teams do not need to choose between:

◼️Being fast

◼️Being safe

They need to choose between:

◼️Speed that looks good today

◼️Speed that stands up tomorrow

Because when the questions come -and they always do -only one of those survives scrutiny.