As the end of the financial year draws closer, attention sharpens across the business to the performance results for the last fiscal year. For General Counsel, it is critical to demonstrate how the legal department has delivered value and helped manage risk.
The EOFY board review demands clear, strategic insights, not just legal updates. Summarising activity is no longer enough; GCs need to show alignment with the company’s commercial objectives.
This article looks at how in-house legal teams can refine their approach to board reporting, particularly in presenting metrics, risks and resource data in a format that works for non-legal stakeholders. It also considers how modern dashboards and legal ops tools can lift the burden of preparation and make reporting more strategic.
Speak the Board’s Language
When reporting to the board, clarity and context are paramount. Legal risk needs translation.
A well-run board pack avoids legalese and goes beyond reactive summaries. It answers questions like:
- Where are the pressure points in the business?
- How has legal helped mitigate risk or support growth?
- Are we facing any material exposures?
- What is coming down the track?
The GC is expected to act as a commercial risk advisor, not just a legal gatekeeper. That means shifting the conversation from what has been done to what it means and what happens next.
What to Track
Legal teams are often wary of quantifying their work, and for good reason. Not everything fits a neat metric. However, board reporting does not require a barrage of numbers. It needs selective, high-level indicators that tell a story. Think dashboards, not spreadsheets.
Examples include:
- Matter volumes and turnaround times: Show how the team supports revenue and manages cycle times.
- Litigation exposure: Highlight trends, costs and reserve positions.
- Regulatory horizon scanning: Identify emerging risks before they bite.
- Spend tracking: Legal budget vs forecast vs prior year, external counsel usage vs internal resources.
- Workload distribution: Resourcing by team, matter type or business unit.
- Business engagement: Legal requests from business teams and legal compliance training in the business.
Importantly, these figures must be put in context. A spike in external legal spend might reflect a major acquisition or litigation, not poor cost control. Data should inform, not raise more questions.
Risk Insights
Risk management is a core board responsibility, and legal plays a central role.
However, board members are not seeking an encyclopaedia of all legal risks. They want clarity on the big-ticket issues that might affect the business or require their attention.
Consider a short risk heatmap or matrix covering:
- Current exposure: What are the top five legal risks and their likely impact?
- Mitigation status: What is in place to manage them?
- Change indicators: Have there been shifts in regulatory enforcement, counterparties or geopolitical risk?
This is where legal insight becomes commercial insight. If, for example, data privacy risk is rising due to poor controls, it is not just a compliance issue. It becomes a reputational and operational threat that cuts across departments.
Making Dashboards Work for Legal
Dashboards have become standard in finance and operations. Legal is catching up.
The most effective dashboards for GCs do not just show data. They help connect activities to business outcomes. Key features might include:
- Real-time updates on matter status, spend and resourcing
- Custom views for senior leadership and board reporting
- Visual indicators for risk levels or complex matters
- Drill-down capability for when more detail is needed
Dashboards also support agile board interactions. If a last-minute query arises, the GC does not have to chase down spreadsheets or cross-reference reports. It is already there, surfaced and structured.
Getting the Data Foundation Right
The quality of board reporting starts with the quality of data. Many in-house teams still face fragmented data, documents in shared drives, matter updates in inboxes, and budgets in Excel.
To move past this, GCs should work with Legal Ops or cross-functional teams to:
- Centralise matter tracking
- Define consistent data fields (e.g. matter type, owner, status)
- Integrate contract and spend systems where possible
- Agree on internal reporting cadences ahead of board cycles
Some legal teams are also tagging matters with business objectives (e.g., growth, risk reduction, innovation) to better show how legal supports the overall business strategy. That slight shift speaks volumes at the board level.
Strategic Preparation
End-of-financial-year and end-of-year reporting should not start a week before the board pack is due. Smart GCs prepare throughout the year. That might mean running quarterly internal reviews, keeping rolling dashboards updated or setting calendar reminders to capture key outcomes as they happen.
Board members appreciate consistency and brevity. When a GC can walk into the room and say, “Here’s where we’ve moved the needle. Here’s where we need your steer”, they earn credibility. Preparation turns legal updates into strategic conversations.
Conclusion
The end of the financial year is not just a reporting milestone. It is a chance to reset how legal is perceived. Use the board pack to show where your team has added value, how it has managed uncertainty and where it is focused next.
By grounding your insights in data and speaking the board’s language, legal becomes a valuable business partner. The difference is between reporting activity to driving strategy with data insights.
This article was originally published on our sister site lawcadia.com.
