Key insights

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1. Legal work fails when no one owns the workflow
Sagi repeatedly comes back to one core issue: most legal teams don’t know who owns the end-to-end process. Requests come in through email, Slack, hallway conversations, and spreadsheets. Without a clear owner, work stalls, context is lost, and lawyers become bottlenecks by default.

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2. Tools don’t fix broken ownership models
Buying technology without defining responsibility only amplifies chaos. Sagi explains that many teams automate individual steps while leaving the broader process fragmented. The result is more tools, more handoffs, and less clarity. True scale comes from orchestration, not point solutions.

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3. Legal Ops is infrastructure, not support
Legal Ops, in Sagi’s view, is not an administrative layer. It is the system that allows legal to function as part of the business. Intake, prioritization, routing, approvals, and escalation are infrastructure problems — and Legal Ops is uniquely positioned to own them.

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4. Scale requires explicit decision-making, not heroics
High-performing legal teams do not rely on individual lawyers to “save the day.” They design systems that make the right decisions repeatable. Sagi emphasizes that hero culture does not scale — clarity does.

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5. Orchestration beats automation
Automation removes steps. Orchestration ensures the right steps happen in the right order, with the right people involved. Sagi draws a clear distinction: automation without orchestration speeds up failure. Orchestration creates resilience.

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6. Legal leaders must think like system designers
GCs and Legal Ops leaders are no longer just legal experts — they are architects of how risk flows through the company. The earlier they design for scale, the less painful growth becomes.

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7. Closing insight

Legal leadership today isn’t about doing more work — it’s about designing systems that make the right work happen. Sagi Eliyahu’s lessons reinforce that ownership, not technology, is what ultimately allows legal teams to scale.