Legal Department Mission and Vision

Updated February 20, 2025 | Argopoint Consulting

Legal Department Mission and Vision: Objectives

A legal department’s vision statement should answer the question “where are we going”?  And a legal department mission statement should answer, “what are we going to do to get there”?  When used correctly, they should provide guiding principles for both the department’s long-term direction and its daily activities. More broadly, the mission and vision should align a department’s leadership, activities (services), structure, and internal culture.  

Revisiting one’s vision or mission statement often serves as a precursor or companion to larger departmental change. It may, for example, serve as the basis for structural reorganization, accompany a change in legal department leadership, or ensure that new legal functions support the larger department goals. It is a key way to instill a sense of institutional continuity in a Legal Department. In such cases, a new mission and vision can provide a necessary foundation for the department culture going forward.

Whenever considering a new mission or vision establishment, a legal department should do so in consult with experts. Argopoint can provide valuable guidance on mission and vision best practices, so that changes implemented have the maximum opportunity for success. 

Legal Department Mission and Vision: Overview

Effective vision statements are vivid, clear, and specific. They are realistic for the organizational and legal department context, both memorable and motivating, and should reinforce a common sense of identity.  They are a “north star” or focal point for strategic planning, a fundamental objective or strategic direction for the legal department.

Mission statements describe the what, who, why, and how of the legal department. They describe why it exists, what it does, and how it fulfills its vision - including measures of success. Effective mission statements are stakeholder oriented, feasible, useful and translatable into metrics (KPIs /OKRs) and also take into account the unique qualities of the team or group.  

Legal Department Mission and Vision: real results

The process of creating an effective mission and vision has multiple components.  Deciding which members of leadership to involve, how to involve clients, and how to structure discussions around new missions and visions, as well as what the statements say, can all impact the future success of their installation.  

Argopoint helps legal departments to break the process into appropriate stages and to provide expert guidance throughout the process of: 

• Gathering input from internal staff, external or business clients, and other appropriate stakeholders, supported by Argopoint’s industry knowledge of other leading companies’ legal department vision and mission creations.

• Incorporating the information gathered into the goals and priorities of leadership, as well as distilling these ideas into clear, actionable statements that can form a part of a mission or vision.  

• Workshopping and testing potential statements with stakeholders to ensure clarity, understanding, and impact. 

Revisiting the mission and vision is a relatively small investment that can reap significant real financial and cultural benefits for most any legal department. Legal departments rely on Argopoint to consider real savings opportunities when crafting initial missions and visions, so that long-term effectiveness and efficiency are prioritized. Because we have worked with legal departments all stages of reorganization, we understand how to ensure that the process can support the department’s future self with each step in mission and vision development.