Law as business support – not a thorn in its side

The decision-makers at the heart of the business have come up with an exciting business idea and, in their enthusiasm, are starting to plan how to take the new product concept or service model forward. Contracts around the idea have already been drafted. Just before launching the new concept, someone wonders whether the idea should be presented to a lawyer to check whether it is necessary to take into account some legal point of view. The lawyer questions the legality of the project and lists a slew of reasons and risks that either prevent or at least significantly impede the execution of the project. Why on earth did the lawyer not want to have such a wonderful idea take flight?

A lawyer’s job is to identify risks and to ensure that business is carried out within the framework of current regulation. We at Fondia challenge ourselves to set such business supportive goals that enable us, as a outsourced legal department of our customer companies, not being a business-supporting (read: restrictive) function and expense. Our aim is to act as a commercially valuable part of our customer companies’ business, so that our work furthers the commercial and strategic goals set by our customer company. Why should we lawyers only be a support function, especially since the law can have a major impact on whether many projects are realised at all? Can a lawyer be creative?

I am new at Fondia and my background is in the traditional world of attorneys-at-law. In contrast to this world, at Fondia, every lawyer is required to demonstrate the ability and willingness to engage in direct customer contact, act as a customer service provider, and learn to understand the customer’s business and its key elements in collaboration with the customer. Fondia is an integral part of our LDaaS customers’ daily business operations, and as a result, we are able to understand the business of our customers and act in a business-driven way in our legal analysis. For example, by acting as a secretary of the board in our customer companies, we are able to observe the company’s business and have the opportunity to proactively advise projects in the early stages of their design. The purpose is not to hinder new business ideas from being realised, but to find a solution that is both business-minded and feasible in terms of current regulation. Instead of only listing project risks, the aim is to always strive to provide a clear statement of action. Without knowing the business or industry more clearly, it is, of course, difficult or impossible to give the customer concrete suggestions on what to do in a certain situation. Our goal is to truly offer our customers commercial value pragmatically. Fondia’s LDaaS service concept is based on partnership. We are a business partner that provides legal and risk management services, so that our customers can focus on the steak itself and not on the thorn in its side.

Fondia - we law your business.