Course · Interpersonal Skills
Working in a Large Organisation
Understand the business, earn trust, run the legal function, manage outside counsel and keep your independence.
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Many lawyers spend most of their careers inside a company, a public body or a large charity, where the client is the organisation and the colleagues are the clients. The job is different from private practice. You must understand how the business makes money and decides, earn the trust of people who are not lawyers, say yes and no in ways that help, and keep your professional independence when your employer is also your client. This is the fifth course of the Legal Management series. It starts with the in-house world and how it differs from a firm, then teaches the business itself, stakeholders and influence with a working Stakeholder Map, and how to run a legal function: service model, intake, priorities, budget and measures. It covers buying and managing outside counsel, compliance, investigations, privilege and independence, and ends with your own career and a capstone in which you review and rebuild the legal function of an invented manufacturer.
The Curriculum
The in-house world: roles, reporting lines, duties and how it differs from a firm→
Roles in a legal department, reporting lines, the client is the organisation, how in-house differs from a firm, duties that come with you and partner versus gatekeeper. Practice: Firm or In-House? and Who Is the Client?
Understanding the business: how the organisation makes money, decides and talks→
How the organisation makes money, strategy and risk appetite, reading basic financials, governance, the business’s language and learning it fast. Practice: Read the Numbers and Translate.
Stakeholders and influence: building trust, saying yes and no, and telling the truth to power→
Stakeholder mapping, relationships, communicating risk, yes-if and no, escalation, unwelcome advice and the board. Practice: Say It Well and the Stakeholder Map.
Running the legal function: service model, intake, priorities, budget and measures→
Service models, intake and triage, prioritising by risk and value, budget and headcount, measures, technology and showing value. Practice: Triage the Requests and Defend the Budget.
Managing outside counsel and legal spend: panels, fees, budgets and invoice review→
What to send out, panels and proposals, fee arrangements, briefing and budgets, invoice review, measuring firms and alternative providers. Practice: Choose the Fee Arrangement and Review the Invoice.
Risk, compliance and ethics in a company: programmes, investigations, privilege and independence→
Compliance programmes, policies and training, speaking up, investigations, privilege, crisis response, data and AI governance and independence. Practice: Handle the Concern and Spot the Compliance Flaw.
Your in-house career: moving in, growing up and proving the legal function’s value→
Moving in-house, the skills beyond law, career paths to general counsel, writing a business case, visibility and moving on. Practice: Write the Business Case and Spot the Career Flaw.
Capstone: Capstone: the legal function at Hartley Components→
Diagnose an in-house legal function, map stakeholders, redesign intake and spend, handle a compliance concern and write a one-page plan.
What It Covers
“You will learn to be a lawyer the business wants to call, and to stay a lawyer who can say no when it matters.”
- Seven modules and a capstone that follow the in-house journey: the world, the business, the people, the function, the spend, the risk and the career.
- Written for lawyers who are moving in-house or have just arrived, with the habits that help and hinder named plainly.
- A working tool you keep using: the Stakeholder Map places people by power, interest and stance, ranks whom to engage first and warns about the common blind spots.
- Connected to the rest of the series: it uses the numbers of The Firm’s Money, the leadership of Leading a Legal Team and the process methods of the Legal Engineer Program.
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Or give this as a giftOther Scrolls in This Chamber
Across the Table$15 →Interests, walk-away numbers, offers, trades, pressure tactics and professional limits, with practice rooms and calculators.
Cooling the Room$15 →How conflict escalates, mapping a dispute, de-escalation, hard conversations, choosing a process, mediation, power, culture and ethics, with practice mediations.
The Client Conversation$15 →Trust, the first meeting, fees and scope, updates in plain words, advice and decisions, bad news, boundaries and ethics, with practice meetings.Module 1 is free to try. Sign in, pass each module quiz and the course average, and your Certificate of Completion is emailed to you automatically. This course teaches method and technique with invented people and figures; it is general education, not legal advice, and professional rules differ from country to country.
Common questions
- Is it only for lawyers moving in-house?
- No. It suits new in-house lawyers, lawyers in firms who advise in-house clients, and anyone who wants to understand how a legal department works.
- Does it cover one country’s rules?
- No. It teaches principles that are widely shared and says where the rules differ, for example on privilege, whistleblowing and the status of in-house lawyers. Check the rules that apply to you.
- Is it for public-sector lawyers too?
- Much of it applies. Public bodies have their own legal and accountability frameworks, which this course does not cover in detail.
- Is it legal or career advice?
- No. It is general education using invented organisations and people. Take advice on professional-conduct and employment matters where they arise.
- How does the Stakeholder Map work?
- You enter people with their power, interest and stance. The tool places them in a grid, ranks whom to engage first and warns about gaps such as a powerful opponent or no sponsor. It is for discussion: it cannot read people’s minds.
- How do I get the Certificate of Completion?
- Sign in, pass each module quiz and keep a course average of at least 75. The certificate is then issued and emailed to you automatically.
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