Have you ever rolled out a legal tool you were excited about, only to watch the business quietly ignore it? If so, you are not alone. Many in-house counsel feel pressure to modernize with legal tech, yet adoption stalls and enthusiasm fades. Very often, legal tech for in-house counsel is positioned mainly around legal team efficiency, but the real challenge is aligning technology with business needs. The problem is rarely the technology itself. More often, it is the way legal teams frame the solution. Legal tech works best when it stops being about legal efficiency and starts solving real business problems.
That insight came through clearly in a recent conversation with Chad Aboud, a former general counsel turned legal tech advisor. Chad has implemented legal technology from inside fast-growing companies, and his perspective challenges a common assumption. Successful legal operations are not built by centering legal needs first. They succeed when in-house counsel deeply understand what the business actually cares about and design solutions from that point outward. Clearly, legal tech for in-house counsel should be tailored to address business priorities from the start.
Watch the full conversation with Chad Aboud here:
Why Legal Tech for In-House Counsel Must Solve Business Problems
In-house lawyers know the pain points all too well. Manual processes, inconsistent contracts, endless redlines, and constant interruptions slow everything down. But when legal teams try to justify new tools by explaining how they help lawyers work more efficiently, the message often falls flat. Business teams do not measure success in reduced legal effort. They measure it in speed, revenue, accuracy, and results.
Chad describes legal tech implementation as a bridge problem. The legal industry already knows the problems and the solutions. What is missing is the bridge between legal capability and business value. That bridge is built through curiosity, not persuasion. When in-house counsel show up asking what sales teams hate, what finance teams struggle with, and where operations lose time or money, they uncover leverage points that legal tools can actually fix. This is a key strategy in deploying legal tech for in-house counsel to maximize value.
Make Legal Feel Like a Business Tool
One of the most practical examples Chad shared was how he approached automation early in his general counsel role. Before buying any major platform, he focused on the most common pain point across the business: NDAs. Instead of framing it as a legal cleanup exercise, he created a simple, locked document with fillable fields that business teams could access directly and send for signature without legal involvement.
The result was immediate trust. Deals moved faster, confusion disappeared, and legal quietly removed itself from low value work. Most importantly, the experience felt familiar to the business. It worked the way their other tools worked. When legal processes feel like business processes, adoption happens naturally.
Build Momentum Through Shared Wins
Legal tech implementations often fail during rollout, not selection. Chad emphasizes the importance of agreeing upfront on what success looks like and resisting the urge to solve everything at once. A version one that solves the core use case is far more powerful than a perfect system that arrives too late.
By celebrating early wins and acknowledging that future versions will address edge cases, in-house counsel keep stakeholders engaged and invested. That approach turns business teams into champions rather than critics. Over time, legal stops feeling like an obstacle and starts feeling like a growth partner. Ultimately, legal tech for in-house counsel is at its most effective when incremental successes are shared throughout the business.
The real takeaway is simple. Legal tech does not succeed because it is sophisticated. It succeeds because it makes someone else’s job easier. When in-house counsel stop leading with the law and start leading with empathy, curiosity, and business goals, legal operations finally deliver on their promise. In summary, legal tech for in-house counsel should always be approached with the goal of supporting real business needs.
Watch the full conversation here: Notes to My (Legal) Self: Season 11, Episode 3 (ft.Chad Aboud)
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