When
Tara
Trantham
talks
about
the
cost
of
delay,
she
is
not
speaking
in
hypotheticals.
As
the
chief
legal
officer
of
a
billion-dollar
publicly
traded
company,
she
faced
simultaneous
investigations
from
the
Consumer
Financial
Protection
Bureau
and
the
Department
of
Justice.
Without
the
benefit
of
legal
technology
or
streamlined
processes,
she
and
her
team
had
to
manually
pull
five
years
of
legal
complaints
into
spreadsheets
for
multiple
agencies.
“It
took
five
years,”
Tara
recalled.
“And
it
cost
hundreds
of
millions
of
dollars
in
expenses
and
lost
productivity.”
The
impact
was
immediate.
On
the
day
the
company
had
to
publicly
disclose
the
investigation,
its
market
capitalization
dropped
by
roughly
$250
million.
The
operational
toll
was
just
as
severe.
While
the
legal
team
was
buried
in
document
collection,
the
business
teams
were
pulled
from
their
core
work
to
find
and
deliver
records.
Growth
slowed
while
compliance
consumed
the
organization.
Why
Early
Engagement
Matters
Tara
is
clear
about
the
lesson.
“If
we
had
embedded
legal
and
compliance
earlier
into
operational
processes,
and
had
the
right
technology
in
place,
we
could
have
reduced
the
time
from
years
to
months
and
saved
millions.”
The
insight
applies
well
beyond
regulatory
investigations.
In
contracting,
the
same
principle
holds.
When
legal
is
looped
in
only
after
a
dispute
arises
or
a
key
deadline
is
missed,
the
cost
of
remediation
is
far
higher
than
the
cost
of
prevention.
Poor
recordkeeping,
unclear
obligations,
and
missing
approval
workflows
create
the
same
kind
of
disruption
Tara
faced,
just
spread
across
more
contracts
and
more
stakeholders.
Tactical
Ways
To
Embed
Legal
Early
-
Map
The
Process,
Not
Just
The
Policy
Tara’s
experience
shows
that
knowing
what
needs
to
be
done
is
not
enough.
You
must
document
exactly
how
information
will
be
collected,
stored,
and
accessed
well
in
advance
of
any
requests
from
regulators
or
counterparties. -
Integrate
Legal
Into
Core
Systems
If
your
sales,
procurement,
and
operations
teams
use
different
tools,
legal
should
have
visibility
into
all
of
them.
Contract
terms
and
obligations
cannot
live
in
a
silo. -
Create
A
Rapid-Response
Data
Protocol
Even
without
a
subpoena
on
the
horizon,
build
a
playbook
for
quickly
pulling
key
information.
Identify
who
owns
each
dataset
and
how
it
will
be
retrieved. -
Use
Data
To
Justify
Resources
Tara
wishes
she
had
presented
a
stronger
case
to
her
CEO
and
board
for
technology
investment.
“It
is
hard
to
prove
the
negative,”
she
said.
“But
if
you
can
quantify
how
many
hours
and
dollars
are
lost
to
manual
processes,
you
can
make
a
compelling
argument
for
change.”
The
Cultural
Shift
Perhaps
the
most
important
takeaway
is
mindset.
Embedding
legal
early
requires
shifting
how
the
business
sees
your
department.
Legal
is
not
just
a
safety
net
when
something
goes
wrong.
It
is
a
partner
in
designing
processes
that
make
it
less
likely
that
anything
will
go
wrong
in
the
first
place.
As
Tara
put
it,
“The
more
prepared
you
are,
the
more
you
can
keep
the
business
growing,
instead
of
pulling
people
away
from
it
to
handle
preventable
crises.”
For
in-house
leaders,
the
challenge
is
to
make
early
engagement
a
habit,
not
a
reaction.
The
next
time
a
major
project
launches
or
a
new
market
opens,
do
not
wait
for
the
first
sign
of
trouble
to
get
involved.
Build
the
connections,
processes,
and
visibility
now
—
before
the
cost
of
delay
becomes
the
headline.
Olga V.
Mack is
the
CEO
of TermScout,
an
AI-powered
contract
certification
platform
that
accelerates
revenue
and
eliminates
friction
by
certifying
contracts
as
fair,
balanced,
and
market-ready.
A
serial
CEO
and
legal
tech
executive,
she
previously
led
a
company
through
a
successful
acquisition
by
LexisNexis. Olga is
also
a Fellow
at
CodeX,
The
Stanford
Center
for
Legal
Informatics,
and
the
Generative
AI
Editor
at
law.MIT.
She
is
a
visionary
executive
reshaping
how
we
law—how
legal
systems
are
built,
experienced,
and
trusted. Olga teaches
at
Berkeley
Law,
lectures
widely,
and
advises
companies
of
all
sizes,
as
well
as
boards
and
institutions.
An
award-winning
general
counsel
turned
builder,
she
also
leads
early-stage
ventures
including Virtual
Gabby
(Better
Parenting
Plan), Product
Law
Hub, ESI
Flow,
and Notes
to
My
(Legal)
Self,
each
rethinking
the
practice
and
business
of
law
through
technology,
data,
and
human-centered
design.
She
has
authored The
Rise
of
Product
Lawyers, Legal
Operations
in
the
Age
of
AI
and
Data, Blockchain
Value,
and Get
on
Board,
with Visual
IQ
for
Lawyers (ABA)
forthcoming. Olga is
a
6x
TEDx
speaker
and
has
been
recognized
as
a
Silicon
Valley
Woman
of
Influence
and
an
ABA
Woman
in
Legal
Tech.
Her
work
reimagines
people’s
relationship
with
law—making
it
more
accessible,
inclusive,
data-driven,
and
aligned
with
how
the
world
actually
works.
She
is
also
the
host
of
the
Notes
to
My
(Legal)
Self
podcast
(streaming
on Spotify, Apple
Podcasts,
and YouTube),
and
her
insights
regularly
appear
in
Forbes,
Bloomberg
Law,
Newsweek,
VentureBeat,
ACC
Docket,
and
Above
the
Law.
She
earned
her
B.A.
and
J.D.
from
UC
Berkeley.
Follow
her
on LinkedIn and
X
@olgavmack.