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As technology advances and regulatory obligations grow, the role of in-house lawyers is expanding beyond traditional legal advisory work.
Product counsel – an in-house lawyer who works closely with the product team, which has thus far most commonly been present within tech companies – is increasingly embedded within business teams, helping organisations bring products to market efficiently while managing legal risk, one expert has said.
In a forthcoming episode of The Lawyers Weekly Show, Katrina Sharman, executive counsel at Piper Alderman, discussed the rise of product counsel, leaning on her experience at Coinbase to explore how lawyers can enable innovation, navigate emerging technologies and evolve relationships between in-house teams.
The rise of product counsel
As technology transforms the way businesses operate, the role of in-house lawyers continues to evolve, with product counsel increasingly embedded in product development to help businesses innovate while managing legal issues.
“Technically, [product counsel] sit within the product function of a company, but they work with designers, engineers, compliance folks, people dedicated to policy executives, the full spectrum of the business,” Sharman said.
“Their main objective is to ensure that products can be brought to market quickly and compliantly, and in doing so, they need to work alongside a lot of different stakeholders.
“The best way to think of them is really as business partners that are designed to accompany the notion of the product that’s being developed from inception through the entire life cycle of the product,” she said.
“The reason that product counts are embedded within the product team is that they’re uniquely placed to understand first the technology of the company.”
As this embedded role gains traction, product counsel are also challenging traditional perceptions of lawyers as decision-makers, but rather positioning themselves as enablers of innovation and business growth.
“As an in-house lawyer, you’re not the department of no; you are really there to ensure that you can take the product to market in a way that is safe for the business, for its customers, that ensures that it is compliant from a regulatory perspective, but that really is consistent with the business’s goals as well,” Sharman said.
“So really, you’re an enabler, and that’s something that was lesson number one for me rather than just a simple legal advisor.”
The future of in-house legal teams
Sharman highlighted that in-house legal teams would become more essential in guiding organisations through complex regulatory landscapes and the legal hurdles of emerging tech like AI, all while supporting commercial growth.
“The key theme across all of those regulatory changes is regulatory density,” she said.
“Having someone embedded in your legal function can help to identify these issues and then triage them and send them to outside counsel on an as-needed basis.
“AI is raising all kinds of interesting questions across the spectrum for lawyers of all kinds.”
Prior to assessing how to address escalating legal changes, Sharman recognised that organisations need to evaluate how internal counsel, external legal advisers, and agile legal providers can collaborate effectively to supply targeted capability when required.
“The external counsel performs a different but equally important role, and that is to bring a specialist depth and a level of experience on very complex or novel issues that an in-house team may not be able to deal with regularly,” Sharman said.
“Part of the art of being a good product counsel is knowing when to outsource, when to lean into a true expert.
“But because the regulatory issues are so complex, it helps to have a lawyer in the seat from time to time.
“And that’s the magic of what the fractional GC or embedded counsel on an as-needed basis can offer.”
