Your first 180 days as GC - from firefighting to foundations

Starting a new General Counsel role can feel like walking into a busy kitchen at peak service. Everyone needs something now, there are pans boiling you did not know existed, and you are still working out where the knives live. Your job in the first 180 days is not to cook every dish yourself. It is to stabilise the heat, agree the menu, and set up a system so good food keeps leaving the pass whether you are on the line or not.

Here's some top tips to help you do just that.

Reset your 30-60-90 plan

The classic 30-60-90 can be helpful, but only if you treat it as a compass, not a contract. Expect to flex. Two lanes will keep you honest:

‍Protect the business - visible fixes you must land quickly, like an intake route, a standard NDA, and clarity on who signs what. ‍
Build the system - slower structural work that removes root cause pain, like a contract playbook, a permissions model for self-service, and a simple policy library.

Keep both lanes moving every week. When emergencies arrive, pick one system job to ship anyway so momentum is not lost.

Publish a one-page Legal charter

If you do not define Legal's scope, someone else will. Draft a single page that answers three questions:

‍What Legal owns. For example, risk policy for contracts, governance of templates, and escalation thresholds. ‍
How to engage Legal. For example, a single intake form, expected triage times, and when to mark something urgent. ‍
Where Legal advises only. For example, people policies led by HR, with Legal input at defined points.

Take it on tour. Present it to the exec, sales, product, finance, and operations. Repeat it in team meetings and on Slack. Scope creep is a certainty. Clarity is your best defence.

Fix the foundations that make everything else faster

Before you draft shiny policies, check the process underneath is not wobbly. Aim for boringly reliable.

‍Intake in two clicks. A simple form that captures who, what, value, risk, and target close date. Route to a shared inbox, not a person.
‍One source of truth. Store signed contracts and live templates in one place with sensible permissions. If you name a folder "Archive", actually archive.
‍Standard answers for repeat asks. Keep a customer assurance pack with privacy, security, and governance content that sales can share. Link up with NCSC guidance and your ICO positions so you are not rewriting the same paragraphs weekly.
‍Vendor visibility. Maintain a simple register of critical suppliers, renewal dates, data flows, and owners, anchored to UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Treat every "where do I find" message as a signal to fix a system, not to fire off another email.

Resource like a business leader

Being the hero who absorbs everything hides the real cost of legal risk. Put numbers on it.

‍Track two to four weeks of work by type and value. Differentiate revenue-facing contracts, business-critical risk, and internal admin. ‍
Show trade-offs. If budget is flat, say what Legal will stop doing so you can continue to protect the business where it matters. ‍
Buy help deliberately. Keep a short bench of specialist advisers on defined scopes, and avoid defaulting to outside counsel for every regional query.
‍Enable self-service. If the business can handle low-risk NDAs or simple order forms from a controlled template, your time shifts to higher value work.

A reputable framework like ISO 27001 from BSI or Cyber Essentials from NCSC can also anchor conversations about proportionate controls.

Your job is to make capacity a business decision, not a badge of honour.

Communicate like a product manager

Legal's work is invisible when it is going well. Make progress visible.

‍Ship notes, not novels. Send a monthly update covering what shipped, what is next, and decisions you need. One screen, max.
‍Use a simple RAG. Traffic lights for risk hotspots and key initiatives reduce "are we there yet" messages.
‍Run a quarterly retrospective. What changed, what delivered value, and what you are stopping. Invite feedback and publish the actions.

Executives do not need a treatise. They need a clear view of risk, progress, and trade-offs.

Protect your attention to protect your judgment

Sole counsel life is context heavy. Attention is your scarcest resource.

‍Block a daily power hour. Pick the time you think best and defend it like a meeting with the CEO. ‍
Create a door policy for yourself. Shut the tabs, silence notifications, and choose one deliverable to finish. ‍
Reset between modes. A short walk, a glass of water, or five minutes away from the screen helps you leave one problem behind before tackling the next.

Boundaries are not indulgent. They are how you make good decisions consistently.

Decide where compliance lives, then join the dots

Every company draws the lines differently. Map it, do not fight it.

‍Clarify swim lanes. Write down who owns what across Legal, InfoSec, HR, Finance, and Product, and how cross-functional issues get handled.
‍Agree routes in. For example, privacy queries enter via Legal intake, security questionnaires via InfoSec, and marketing claims via a sign-off flow.
‍Prepare for incidents. Align with ICO timelines, keep your contact tree current, and run a tabletop exercise so no one meets the breach plan for the first time on the worst day.

If you have a central compliance team, make sure it can pull in specialists quickly rather than becoming a bottleneck.

Quick wins you can bank this quarter

Small moves compound. Here are practical fixes with outsized impact:

‍One mutual NDA and a one-page playbook. Train sales on when not to edit. ‍
Clause fallbacks for your top ten redlines. Decide acceptable alternatives once, not weekly.
Signature authority schedule. Publish who signs what and when Legal must review.
Contract summary sheet. One front page with parties, value, renewals, and key risks to speed onboarding and handovers.
Customer assurance library. Standard answers for privacy, security, and governance with named owners to update.
Leave cover plan. Document critical workflows and who will own them during holidays. Test it before anyone is out.

These are not glamour projects. They save hours, reduce noise, and build trust.