In-House Lawyers: Strapping F1 engines onto Shopping Carts

Introduction: Why In-House Legal Has Never Delivered ROI on Talent — and Why the GLS Human Capital System Exists

This paper is an introduction to the GLS Human Capital System.

It is not a commentary on individual lawyers.
It is not a critique of effort or intent.
And it is not an abstract discussion of “people issues”.

It is an explanation of why in-house legal human capital has historically under-delivered, why those outcomes were entirely predictable, and why GLS has built a deliberate, system-based solution to address that reality.

The analysis that follows draws on deep industry observation.
The conclusion is clear: without a designed human capital system, in-house legal performance will always fall short of its potential — regardless of how good the lawyers are.

The Historic Error: Treating the Lawyer as the Solution

For decades, in-house legal performance has been optimised using the wrong unit of analysis.

The dominant assumption has been simple and persistent:

If we hire good lawyers, value will follow.

This assumption has shaped:

• hiring strategies
• resourcing models
• budget decisions
• performance expectations

It has also consistently failed to deliver the outcomes organisations now demand.

Despite employing highly capable professionals, many in-house legal teams continue to struggle with:

• inconsistent performance
• limited scalability
• high churn
• opaque value
• growing business frustration

This is not a failure of talent.
It is a failure of human capital system design.

The Core Problem: Talent Without a System Cannot Compound

A lawyer, by itself, is not a value-creating asset.

A lawyer is a high-cost, high-judgement input that only produces leverage when placed inside the right operating environment.

Without that environment, even exceptional lawyers:

• absorb inefficiency rather than eliminate it
• recreate work instead of scaling it
• rely on memory rather than systems
• apply judgement inconsistently
• carry hidden operational risk

This is where the analogy matters:

In-house legal has repeatedly strapped Formula 1 engines to shopping carts —
then wondered why performance, control, and outcomes don’t improve.

The issue has never been the engine.
It has always been the absence of the system around it.

Why This Failure Has Been So Persistent

1. Legal Work Hides Systemic Failure

Legal work is intellectually dense and operationally opaque.

Because outcomes are often indirect, organisations default to proxy measures:

• responsiveness
• effort
• volume
• anecdotal satisfaction

These metrics reward activity, not effectiveness.
They obscure structural problems and mask inefficiency with individual heroics.

As a result, systemic weaknesses are rarely addressed — they are simply worked around.

2. In-House Legal Environments Are Structurally Underspecified

There is a reality the profession must acknowledge without defensiveness:

Most in-house legal environments do not come with built-in human capital infrastructure.

In many organisations, there is limited or no:

• structured development
• systematic quality review
• formal performance calibration
• deliberate knowledge reuse
• visible progression logic

This is not a criticism.
It is context.

But pretending otherwise — and continuing to deploy increasingly expensive talent into environments that cannot support it — guarantees underperformance.

3. Attrition Is Rational Behaviour, Not Disloyalty

Across industries, in-house lawyers frequently move roles every 18–36 months. This is not hidden data — it is visible in plain sight.

The explanation is simple.

Capable lawyers want:

• to do meaningful work
• to feel effective
• to develop and progress
• to be trusted with judgement
• to belong to a credible, well-run function

When those conditions are absent, they leave.

This is not a people problem.
It is system feedback.

4. Cost Has Been Framed as the Wrong Constraint

Human capital decisions in legal are often dominated by cost control.

But cost is not the real issue.

The issue is value conversion.

If a legal function cannot convert talent into consistent outcomes, reducing spend merely shrinks the problem — it does not solve it.

The real question is:

How do we ensure the spend we already commit to legal talent actually delivers ROI?

That question cannot be answered without a system.

Why This Moment Is Different

What makes this moment significant is not the diagnosis — it is the availability of solutions.

In-house legal now has access to:

• legal operations disciplines
• scalable process design
• knowledge platforms
• enablement tools
• flexible resourcing models
• performance data

For the first time, the components of a real operating system exist.

What has been missing is a coherent way to bring them together around human capital.

This is the gap the GLS Human Capital System is designed to fill.

The GLS Human Capital System: From Insight to Architecture

GLS does not approach human capital as:

• headcount management
• talent programmes
• HR process
• cultural aspiration

GLS treats human capital as performance architecture.

The GLS Human Capital System is a deliberately designed framework that explains:

• how legal talent is authorised
• how judgement is applied consistently
• how teams are composed and deployed
• how infrastructure and enablement create scale
• how performance is designed and reinforced
• how capability is developed and retained
• how standards are sustained over time

It exists because talent alone cannot deliver ROI — only talent operating inside a system can.

Introducing the GLS Human Capital Line

The Human Capital Line is the delivery vehicle for this system.

It translates deep industry insight into a practical, executable framework built around eight integrated buckets. Each bucket addresses a structural requirement that must exist if legal talent is to compound in value.

In simple terms, the system answers eight non-negotiable questions:

1. Mandate & Authority – Why does legal exist and what is it accountable for?
2. Legal Method – How is judgement applied consistently at scale?
3. Team Selection & Composition – Who is deployed, and why?
4. Operating Infrastructure – What environment allows talent to function reliably?
5. Enablement – How is judgement converted into industrial-scale output?
6. Lawyer Development & Progression – How does capability compound over time?
7. Team Performance – How is quality and effectiveness reinforced?
8. Continuity & Governance – How does the system survive change?

Together, these form a complete human capital operating system for in-house legal.

Why the GLS Approach Is Different — and Necessary

The GLS Human Capital System is superior because it:

• replaces ad hoc people decisions with system design
• treats lawyers as high-value assets, not interchangeable inputs
• enables scale without proportional headcount growth
• makes performance deliberate rather than assumed
• improves retention by design, not goodwill
• creates ROI through leverage, not effort

Most importantly, it gives in-house leaders control.

Control over performance.
Control over investment decisions.
Control over outcomes.

What This Paper Is — and What Comes Next

This paper is the intellectual foundation of the GLS Human Capital Line.

It explains:

• why historic approaches have failed
• why those failures were inevitable
• and why a system-based approach is now essential

What follows — through the Human Capital Line — is the practical expression of that thinking:

• the buckets
• the stations
• the sequencing
• and the tools to execute it

Final Position

In-house legal has never failed because its lawyers weren’t good enough.
It has underperformed because those lawyers were never placed inside a system designed to let them succeed.

The GLS Human Capital System exists to change that.

This paper introduces why it is needed.
The Human Capital Line shows how it is delivered.

And together, they define a future-ready model for legal human capital performance.

You can read a detailed introduction to the GLS In-House Human Capital system right here.