Legal Department Offsite

Legal department offsite: overview

Offsites are an important tool for legal departments to discuss major business matters, engage in strategic planning, and align leadership and potentially the entire department. While a successful offsite can set up a legal department for success for the next year, a poorly executed or planned offsite risks wasting the time and energy of a department’s leadership.

Legal department offsite: Objectives

Argopoint’s experience with planning legal offsites allows us to support departments from offsite conception to kick-off. In its initial stages, we support departments with goal setting, agenda planning, and guiding principles for organization, participants, and meeting design. Throughout offsite preparation, we also support with scheduling support, offsite logistics, and organizing external participants.

During the offsite, a range of activities occur. Staff will discuss assigned offsite reading materials, participate in discussion groups, and provide feedback and insight to legal leadership. In addition, staff will frequently participate in offsite teambuilding and social activities, designed to bring the department closer together. Each of these activities requires careful planning and coordination from legal leadership. The timing, length, and content all have a major impact on outcomes. Argopoint can help by working with legal departments to create an offsite schedule that balances activities around departments’ offsite goals.

After an offsite, generating useful feedback and input from attendees is critical for further development. Argopoint can assist with gathering and evaluating staff feedback and data. Beyond this, we will also offer recommendations for follow-up steps to put your offsite plans of action into motion.

legal department offsite: SOLUTIONS AND SAVINGS

Support for organizing a legal department offsite brings a range of benefits. Above all, a stronger offsite will make better use of a legal staff’s time. U.S. companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year for department offsites just on internal salaries (HBR 2006). The opportunity cost of pulling attorneys away from work for multiple days is immense, so running an offsite without tangible benefits can become a major expense to a department budget.

Well-structured offsites ensure departments’ valuable time remains focused. As Harvard Business Review notes, “[offsite] frameworks also help organize potentially limitless discussions about big issues like growth or innovation into manageable categories and focus the conversation on the objectives.” (HBR 2006).

Savings from an offsite extend well beyond the meeting, and the benefits can extend to the entire legal department. Working with Argopoint can help your legal department:
-       Collectively address targeted objectives for the department
-       Align staff behind a plan for organizational change or growth
-       Determine action steps following an offsite to pursue department goals