In larger organisations, the legal team will often be part of a corporate services division, perhaps headed by the general counsel (GC) or a corporate services director. The legal team will work closely with other corporate services functions to support the organisation's customer-facing and back-office activities.

Private companies are not required to have a company secretary, unless their constitution requires it. Public limited companies must have one and many larger private companies choose to have one. Large organisations with complex structures often have a company secretarial department that consists of qualified company secretaries and administration staff. They deal with compliance with company law, listing rules, shareholder agreements and regulatory requirements. The company secretarial department also supports the boards and committees that form part of the organisation's governance structure, which allows the company or group to operate compliantly as an entity. In addition, the company secretary advises the directors on their personal duties and obligations at law and under the company's governance documents.

The GC's role is to advise the company, via the company's directors and managers, on its duties and obligations at law and in its trading activities. In some organisations, the GC is also the company secretary. In this situation, the GC will be involved in ensuring that the organisation complies with its filing and registration requirements, and will also deal with the administrative requirements of boards and committees (such as agendas, papers, minutes and board actions). In other organisations, mostly larger companies, the role is split in two. In this case, the company secretary will often work closely with the GC and legal teams to provide advice on:

For further information, see For company secretaries.

The corporate communications (CC) function (also known as public relations or public affairs) has become increasingly influential in many organisations and now often manages its dealings with government. The Financial Times defines CC as being dedicated to:

Today, managing the tone and consistency of communications across multiple internal and external channels is vital in every organisation. A busy CC team will deal with:

In all these areas, CC will work closely with other departments, including the legal team. For example, they will handle media enquiries about any litigation involving the organisation or negative media coverage. In sensitive areas, CC will liaise closely with the legal team to establish a company position, clarify the facts and understand what they can say legally.

When dealing with CC, it is important for the legal team to explain the legal issues clearly and succinctly, and set out what the risks are. Ideally, the legal team should work with CC regularly so that you can learn how to write legally "safe" content in CC language. Crafting messages for external and internal audiences is a key aspect of reputation management, so it pays to understand how CC works and the pressures the team are under to release information and respond to enquiries.

Remember, your CC colleagues will often want to cooperate with the media and release more, rather than less, information. Consequently, you need to be clear where your red lines are and, in particular, where you must advise against releasing information. It is important to do this with a clear understanding of the company's overall risk appetite and messaging competencies. Several business crises have shown that a more empathetic and perhaps legally exposed messaging strategy has actually done less overall harm to the business than a more protective approach may have achieved. You'll also need a process for dealing with particular types of enquiry from CC, including those subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or data protection legislation.

The finance department deals with every aspect of the organisation's financial affairs and is involved in the budgetary and reporting cycles. If you manage your departmental budget, you'll need to understand these cycles to ensure your plans are factored in and costed. You'll also need to understand how other departments' plans and objectives may affect their legal needs. For further information, see Practice note, Fitting the legal team into the annual business planning, budgeting and reporting cycle.

Finance reports on the organisation's financial performance, often in the form of dashboards and traffic light reports. You should ensure that the data you collect and report on fits in with your organisation's format. If you have some control over what you report, focus on value rather than just cost and activity. In particular, highlight how the legal team has helped protect the organisation's assets and reputation, and how innovations you have introduced have resulted in greater efficiencies.

It is important to understand how finance colleagues use numbers and terms, such as materiality or percentage chance, as they will probably not use them in the same way that you do from a legal perspective. This can lead to confusion, especially when dealing with high-impact activities like reporting accounting reserves against litigation outcomes in the audited accounts. For further information, see Practice note, Demystifying company accounts.

Tax law is complex and subject to change. Although you may not have to advise on tax law, you'll need to be aware of how changes may affect your organisation's trading relationships, its terms and conditions and relationships with employees and contractors. In particular, you should aim to ensure that tax advice in your organisation:

The treasury function manages the organisation's financial relationship with shareholders, lenders, regulators and the tax authorities. It is also concerned with the organisation's banking arrangements, liquidity and investment strategy. Treasury teams often operate these arrangements under complex contracts with banks and other lenders. It is important to ensure that these contracts are properly understood and are not entered into unless they can be done compliantly.

Common treasury tactics that can create major challenges of this kind include:

Human resources (HR) play an increasingly strategic role in many organisations as they seek to respond to globalisation, changing employee expectations, technological disruption and political and legislative change. The scope of the work that HR departments now undertake has increased the need for expert legal advice on many issues, including:

Dealing with information technology (IT) policies is another important part of the legal team's work. The legal team is likely to have wide-ranging responsibilities that include understanding the technology and the supplier business model, as well as the law, to advise on:

These issues are particularly important when commissioning or adapting software services, as this raises issues around data privacy compliance and ownership of software code integrated into your organisation's software. For further information, see Practice note, Demystifying IT lawyering.

Your organisation's estates and facilities management department will rely on you for legal advice across a wide range of property-related issues. Increasing numbers of these areas carry large fines and criminal liability for organisations and for managers and directors personally. The critical areas are: