In addition to creating legal strategies and mitigating risk, General Counsels also serve as executive leaders and are expected to act as strategic business partners rather than just legal advisors. The operative word here is "business," meaning that they are responsible for managing the legal department with the same level of efficiency and effectiveness as any other business unit within the company.

To establish yourself as the strategic business partners your clients want and need, it's crucial to cultivate a high-performing team, which can be achieved by streamlining processes and leveraging technology. But that requires an investment of capital and time, which means developing a business case to justify that investment. This will provide an important counterargument to push-back, such as:

• "All this time you have been providing legal advice and negotiating contracts without a tool. Why do we need one now?"
• "How will this affect client service? This new process/tool will get in the way of me talking to my attorney."
• "You don't need a solution designed for Legal. You can use one of these enterprise tools IT already has."
• "IT doesn't have the resources to implement another tool or integrate it into our systems. Can this get done without internal IT resources?"

A business case should start with the recognition of the need for optimization and is about much than simply funding. It's about value, and the earlier you engage others in your vision, the better.