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Why the GLS Internal Client Line Is a Powerful Framework for Fixing the Legal–Business Relationship
• 03 Jan 26
Most internal client issues in legal departments are not actually relationship problems. They can quite often be design failures.
Matt Glynn - GLS Group
Why the GLS Internal Client Line Is a Powerful Framework for Fixing the Legal–Business Relationship
Across organisations globally, Legal teams report the same frustrations:
◼️ “The business comes to us too late.”
◼️ “They bypass Legal.”
◼️ “They think we’re slow.”
◼️ “They don’t understand what we do.”
Meanwhile, the business says something very different:
◼️ “Legal is hard to engage.”
◼️ “I don’t know who to go to.”
◼️ “I never know where my matter is up to.”
◼️ “Legal feels like a blocker, not an enabler.”
Both sides are usually acting rationally.
The problem sits between them — at the interface.
This is precisely the problem the GLS Internal Client Line is designed to solve.
The Core Insight: Internal Client Relationships Are Structural, Not Personal
Traditional approaches to “improving engagement with the business” focus on:
◼️ Softer communication
◼️ Relationship-building
◼️ Embedded lawyers
◼️ Better stakeholder management
These may help at the margins — but they do not scale.
The GLS Internal Client Line starts from a different premise:
If the rules of engagement, access, cost, responsiveness, escalation, and self-service are unclear, no amount of goodwill will fix the relationship.
What the business experiences as “Legal” is not the lawyers —
it is the system they interact with.
What Makes the GLS Internal Client Line Different
The Internal Client Line is not a list of initiatives.
It is a reference framework that maps the entire lifecycle of the legal–business interaction.
It forces legal leaders to confront five uncomfortable but critical questions:
1. Do we clearly define when Legal must be involved — and when it shouldn’t be?
2. Is access to Legal controlled, fair, and transparent?
3. Does the business understand what it will cost — in time, money, or trade-offs — to use Legal?
4. Can internal clients see progress, escalate intelligently, and give feedback?
5. Are we systematically removing Legal from low-value work through enablement and self-service?
Most legal teams answer “no” to at least three of these.
Why the Line Structure Matters
The power of the Internal Client Line lies in its sequencing.
It deliberately moves from:
3. Execution and cost
4. Experience and escalation
This matters because maturity in internal client relationships is directional.
Teams that jump straight to:
◼️ surveys,
◼️ training,
◼️ or self-service
without first defining mandate, access and service boundaries almost always fail.
The GLS Line makes it impossible to skip the hard foundations.
Turning a “Relationship Problem” Into an Operating Model
One of the most damaging myths in-house is that internal client issues are about attitude.
In reality, they are symptoms of:
◼️ undefined mandates,
◼️ uncontrolled demand,
◼️ invisible workflows,
◼️ inconsistent responsiveness,
◼️ and no clear escalation logic.
The Internal Client Line reframes the conversation from:
“Why don’t they respect Legal?”
to:
“Have we designed an interface the business can actually use?”
This is a subtle but profound shift.
Why Legal Leaders Find This Framework Confronting (and Useful)
The Internal Client Line exposes things many teams would rather avoid:
◼️ who is authorised to use Legal,
◼️ which work Legal will not prioritise,
◼️ how long things should take,
◼️ and when the business should self-serve instead.
But this is precisely why the framework works.
High-performing internal functions — Finance, IT, Procurement — all operate this way.
Legal has historically avoided it, often to its own detriment.
From “Legal as a Bottleneck” to “Legal as Infrastructure”
When implemented properly, the Internal Client Line delivers three outcomes simultaneously:
1. Reduced Friction
Clear intake, expectations, and escalation remove emotional noise.
2. Increased Trust
Predictability matters more to the business than speed alone.
3. Scalable Impact
Self-help, training, and playbooks allow Legal to focus on work that genuinely requires judgement.
This is how Legal moves from being a reactive service to business infrastructure.
Why This Matters Now
Legal departments are under increasing pressure:
◼️ More work
◼️ Same or fewer resources
◼️ Higher scrutiny
◼️ Faster business cycles
Improving internal client relationships is no longer a “nice to have”.
It is a capacity strategy.
The GLS Internal Client Line gives legal leaders a way to:
◼️ diagnose the real issues,
◼️ design a coherent response,
◼️ and communicate clearly with the business about how Legal operates.
Not with slogans — but with structure.
Final Thought
If the business finds Legal difficult to work with, the problem is rarely the people.
It’s almost always the system.
The GLS Internal Client Line exists to fix the system.
