What if being a little less perfect could actually make you a better in-house lawyer? For lawyers moving from private practice into an in-house role, learning to provide practical in-house legal advice can be one of the hardest lessons to learn. In a law firm, precision is everything. A typo, incorrect citation, or cross-reference error can lead to another round of review. Inside a company, however, the goal is often different: the business needs to move forward while legal risks are managed.
Geoffrey Brow, an Assistant General Counsel at Roku with decades of experience in corporate and technology transactions, describes this shift through his own experience. After years in corporate law, he learned that a company’s primary business is not law. Companies want to close deals, build partnerships, launch products, and keep moving. For in-house counsel, this means learning to balance careful legal work with practical business needs rather than trying to make every detail perfect.
Watch the full conversation with Geoffrey Brow here:
In-House Counsel Must Think Beyond the Document
One of the biggest changes in-house lawyers face is learning to separate critical risks from issues that are simply imperfect.
In private practice, lawyers may spend significant time making every part of a document as polished as possible. In-house, that same approach can sometimes slow down a transaction without adding meaningful value. Brow explains that lawyers need to identify the company’s core goals and vulnerabilities, then focus their attention on those areas.
This is where legal judgment becomes especially important.
Imagine a business team is ready to sign a partnership agreement. There may be several points that are not exactly what the lawyer would choose. The question is not always, “Can this contract be improved?” A more useful question may be, “What could seriously harm the company if this deal goes wrong?”
That mindset helps in-house counsel become a business partner rather than simply a reviewer of documents.
Practical In-House Legal Advice Starts With Knowing What Matters
The shift from perfection to practicality does not mean lowering legal standards or ignoring risk. In fact, it can require even stronger risk awareness.
Brow describes working with technology companies and new technologies where there may be no established precedent. In those situations, he works closely with business and engineering teams, asks questions, understands how the technology works, identifies possible risks, and considers how those risks can be managed.
This is a valuable lesson for today’s in-house legal professionals. Practical in-house legal advice becomes more useful when lawyers understand the business problem behind the legal question.
Sometimes, the most valuable skill is not knowing every answer immediately. It is knowing what questions to ask.
The In-House Lawyer as a Practical Problem Solver
Brow uses an airplane analogy for working in lean legal teams: the lawyer’s job is to get the plane safely to the ground, even if some parts fall off along the way.
The message is simple: not everything will go perfectly.
For in-house counsel, legal leadership is often about staying calm, identifying the biggest risks, and helping the business continue moving. The strongest legal support does not necessarily eliminate every possible risk. Instead, it helps the company understand important risks and make informed decisions.
For lawyers building an in-house career, this mindset can make a major difference. Do the legal work carefully, but remember what the work is ultimately for: helping the business move forward while protecting what matters most.
Watch the full conversation here: Notes to My (Legal) Self: Season 14, Episode 5 (ft. Geoffrey Brow)
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