Having Legal Knowledge Is Not the Same as Having Collective Legal Capability
A team may bring together highly qualified lawyers and still lack a shared capability to turn law into consistent decisions about digital consumer legal risk.
Individual knowledge does not guarantee collective capability
Legal knowledge initially belongs to the professional. Collective legal capability belongs to the team. Between the two are coordination, methodology, common language, decision criteria and shared learning.
Collective capability emerges when knowledge can be:
- shared;
- applied;
- challenged;
- used to make decisions;
- converted into learning.
Legal capability needs a way of working
Digital consumer legal risk crosses legal and non-legal functions. Team capability therefore cannot be reduced to isolated legal answers.
From individual specialists to team capability
The objective is not to eliminate professional differences. It is to integrate them within a methodology capable of producing better decisions.
KNOWLEDGE
What each professional knows.
CAPABILITY
What the team can consistently do with what it knows.
Collective capability is demonstrated through cases
Legal capability is demonstrated by how a team identifies an issue, analyzes facts and evidence, builds alternatives, supports a position, acts and learns.
The question for the legal team
If a key person leaves tomorrow, does the legal capability remain?