No matter their industry, UK businesses face a myriad of legal challenges from regulatory changes to data protection and employment laws. Establishing an adept legal team will keep you on the straight and narrow, helping you to navigate and anticipate changes that could affect your organisation.
Assessing your legal needs
The first step in building a legal team is understanding your requirements. General legal essentials as outlined by The Companies Act 2006 include:
- Registering your business
- Acquiring licenses or permits
- Writing employment contracts
- Managing business tax
You may also wish to protect your intellectual property with measures such as trademarks.
Those in regulated sectors such as education, healthcare and finance must be compliant with sector-specific legislation as well, as outlined by the industry regulatory body. For example, companies providing financial services have to operate in line with the rules of the Financial Conduct Authority.
Recruiting the right talent
Once your needs are clear, you can search for professionals with expertise in relevant business law.
Start by deciding whether you want an in-house legal team or to use the services of a solicitor or law firm. Outsourcing gives you the protection of claiming compensation in the event of solicitor negligence while an in-house team means instant access to tailored information and advice.
Other considerations include cost, the regularity of your requirements and the size of your company.
Integrating the legal team
Ensure you are compliant in all areas of your business by carefully integrating the legal team. This should include an initial assessment to identify risks and areas of improvement and a plan with clear points of action and their priority.
You will also need to select key individuals from each department to work closely with your legal team, providing data and discussing problems and solutions. You might find it useful to break down your legal team by department, or else by specialty such as tax law, contract law and compliance.
Implementing effective legal processes
Take particular care with implementing legal processes to ensure they are effective.
Start by briefing the company as a whole, explaining their role in the process and how it could change their day-to-day tasks. Many business laws apply to all, such as Europe’s data privacy and security law (GDPR) which affects everyone from IT technicians to salespeople.
From here, your senior staff and legal team should work together closely to revamp policies and procedures. You will also need to nominate people in each department to ensure employees remain compliant in the weeks and months after the roll-out is complete.
