What’s it like to walk into a high-growth tech company as its first lawyer? You walk into the office on day one and ask yourself, what’s on fire? The company is growing, moving quickly, has great momentum, so something must be on fire - right?
The first lawyer at a high-growth scaleup has an enormous task ahead of them: to build a robust, scaleable legal infrastructure from the ground up. Where do you start, and how do you plan ahead?
There’s no point looking to the future if you don’t have a solid baseline, and there’s nothing more foundational to legal than contracts. How do you build a minimum viable product for your contracting process?
Everyone in a scaleup is focused on growth, and legal should be no different. You might have a million competing priorities, but enabling your commercial colleagues should be at the top of your list from day one.
Soft skills are invaluable - especially for a lawyer working at a high-growth scaleup for the first time. Here’s how you can adopt and implement soft skills to succeed in your role.
Once you’ve survived your first few months at a scaleup, you’re likely to realise that reinforcements would be useful. But how do you put together a world-class team?
If your whole company is geared towards velocity and growth, then legal has a key role to play. What are the practices and behaviours that ensure lawyers are enablers and not blockers?
In the digital age, privacy and compliance are paramount - but misconceptions and a lack of understanding can make it challenging for scaleups to implement these policies. Here’s how lawyers can enable teams to lead with privacy in mind.
Funding rounds involve a mountain of legal work - here’s how can lawyers collaborate with founders and ensure they’re fully prepared for the raise.
If your scaleup starts to hit white-hot growth, processes that aren’t robust will break pretty quickly. How did Monzo create a mindset that led to frictionless, scaleable legal operations?
If you’re growing quickly, you need to set new joiners up for success. This includes their awareness of legal procedures, policies and compliance. How can you maintain legal hygiene as growth accelerates?
Legal technology isn’t a panacea, but it can help you to carry the weight of your workload. How do you know what to prioritize and when - and who can help you make it happen internally?
Moving into a new jurisdiction is often a complex legal question that could benefit from months of consideration. You’re unlikely to have that at a scaleup - so how do you survive and thrive as your company explores new territories?
For almost every type of tech scaleup, the US is the most valuable market to enter, and success there can make or break the company’s long-term ambitions. Here’s what you need to know about entering the US.
Legal for scaleups: create, build and scale a world-class legal function