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TALKING LEGAL OPERATIONS WITH COLIN LEV Y
How to Build Strategic Legal Operations for Business Agility in Uncertain Times By COLIN LEVY
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onsider the hypothetical case of a medical device company learning in late 2024 that new FDA medical device regulations would take effect in just 90 days. The company’s legal team would have faced a daunting challenge—one that underscored the urgent need for strategic legal operations during a critical window. This scenario illustrates why legal operations can no longer operate reactively. In today’s volatile business environment, where regulatory shifts, market disruptions, and organizational pivots happen with unprecedented speed, legal teams BACK TO CONTENTS
must transform from cost centers into strategic enablers of business agility.
FROM REACTIVE TO STRATEGIC ANTICIPATION The most resilient legal operations teams share a common characteristic: they go beyond crisis management to develop systematic approaches to navigate uncertainty. This transformation requires fundamentally reimagining how legal departments plan, execute, and measure their work. Consider how a hypothetical global manufacturing company
might restructure its legal operations after supply chain disruptions revealed gaps in contract oversight. Rather than simply fixing immediate problems, it could implement a comprehensive risk-sensing framework that monitors regulatory changes across 50 countries, tracks contract expiration dates 18 months in advance, and maintains pre-approved vendor alternatives for critical services. Uncertainty is now a constant—an insight driving this transformation. While specific disruptions remain unknown, the frequency and magnitude of change events continue to
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