The business owns legal issues

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In which the curmudgeonly old sod puts the world to rights.
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The Devil’s Advocate

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Ignorantia juris non excusat.

A founding, fundamental point, but one lost in our disintermediated, siloed age: the ultimate owner of legal risk is not legal, but the business. Legal simply advises the business on the legal risk.

Some counterintuitive implications of this:

  • The business should make legal calls within normal operating parameters (the “BAU”)
  • The business should read the whole contract. Like, what? Sure. You are taking responsibility for it. Why wouldn’t you read it? Are you just going to take it on faith from the legal eagles?
  • It is up to the business to know not just the known knowns [1] but also the known unknowns and to be aware, and responsible for, the unknown unknowns. Only where you encounter a known unknown should the business get on the phone to legal, but the outcome of that advice is for the business to acquire another known known.
  1. ↑ And the unknown knowns, but QED it does not know those. Such is the imperfect state of the world, my friends.
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