Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Operating as a Legal Business Person: Why Commercial Awareness Matters for In-house Counsel and How to Develop It

Published by a LexisNexis In-house Advisor expert

Practice notes

The label 'legal business person' admits multiple interpretations and resists a single, fixed definition. This Practice Note looks at:

how we define a 'legal business person' in context
why operating in this manner is vital
how this approach can enhance your career
the ways lawyers build genuine commercial awareness

Some headhunters regard lawyers as sitting on a company’s fringes, yet that view jars with how most in-house counsel see their role, and it fails to capture the reality of their day-to-day position.

In-house lawyers are embedded at the centre of the enterprise, orchestrating relationships and information flows day to day, and acting as 'legal business people'. They manage and leverage networks of colleagues and the circulation of information around them.

What do we mean by 'legal business person'?

In-house lawyers often fall into two clear groups: those who practise for the love of the law and its intellectual discipline, and those who use legal practice as a vehicle, applying an extra skill-set to drive commercial results.

Private practice contains many in the first camp, who plainly enjoy the pressures of the job, and the profession unquestionably needs such people in significant numbers.

Then there are the in-house...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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