Your legal work shouldn’t live in the founder’s inbox.

Create one place for requests

When requests arrive through email, chat, and hallway conversations, prioritization becomes a memory test. Choose one intake route and ask for the same essentials: the business owner, the document, the commercial objective, and the real deadline.

A request marked urgent should explain what happens if it is late. That lets counsel distinguish a customer’s preferred signature date from a deadline with an immediate business consequence.

Agree who makes the business decision

Legal can explain a contractual risk. Someone in the business still needs to decide whether the opportunity justifies accepting it. Identify that decision-maker at the beginning, particularly for requests involving unusual liability, important customer commitments, or substantial spend.

Give your legal team context on the negotiation. Deal size, customer importance, implementation cost, and the alternatives available all help frame useful advice.

Turn recurring work into a repeatable process

Start with one frequent request, such as a standard customer agreement. Agree the intake requirements, the preferred starting document, and when an issue should be escalated. Record decisions so the next person does not have to start again.

At a regular check-in, review what is waiting, what requires an executive decision, and what keeps recurring. Use that discussion to adjust the process and the legal support you need.

A legal function works better when it helps the company make decisions, rather than simply accumulating documents for review.