Within large corporations and organizations, each sizable department is asked to  execute a "macroeconomic-like" analysis of their function.  For example, finance is charged with overseeing areas such as corporate reporting, tax, forecasting and cost control. Business development tracks data such as sales and leads, plans marketing efforts and coordinates licensing deals.   Human resources oversees functions like hiring and headcount reduction, skills development, DEI, issue resolution and compliance.  And this obviously just scratches the surface of value-added administrative data and process tracking.

Historically, how was Corporate Legal managed?

In the past, in a time long ago and place far away, legal was considered by some to be a somewhat uncontrollable function. Companies had legal matters, in-house counsel coordinated appropriate responses, it was what it was.