--- title: "Legal work that stays useful" description: "Legal work should help with the decision at hand and leave the organisation better equipped for the next one. A practical note on sources, systems and responsibility." language: "en" source: "/pivot/" canonical: "https://jonashertner.com/pivot/" content_id: "https://jonashertner.com/pivot/#article" type: "article" status: "current" author: "Jonas Hertner" published: "2026-08-03" modified: "2026-09-05" version: "2026-09-05" citation: "Jonas Hertner, “Legal work that stays useful” (version 2026-09-05), https://jonashertner.com/pivot/." --- # Legal work that stays useful Working note · Revised 5 September 2026 > Legal work should help with the decision at hand and leave the organisation better equipped for the next one. A practical note on sources, systems and responsibility. Jonas Hertner · lawyer ## The purpose Begin with the decision the organisation needs to make. Find out how the business works and what stands in the way: a contractual restriction, an unresolved fact, an uncertain legal position or an approval nobody owns. The response may require advice, a change to a process or a better way to handle information. Good legal work helps resolve the immediate question and leaves the organisation better equipped for the next one. The people who inherit it should be able to find the relevant documents, understand why a choice was made and recognise when its assumptions no longer hold. ## What should stay Outside counsel may be needed for representation, specialist knowledge or an independent assessment. The organisation should also retain the material and reasoning it is entitled to keep and will need again. Advice is easier to reuse when its sources, scope, assumptions and date remain attached. The test is what the next team can do with the work. Can it understand an earlier exception, check the basis for an accepted risk or prepare a new instruction without reconstructing the history from inboxes? ## What AI changes AI tools can help identify dates, compare drafts, assemble chronologies linked to documents and repeat specified checks. Used well, they can make a broader review practical and help a team prepare more of the material needed for a decision. The tools can also miss a relevant document, misread a passage or make a claim its citation does not support. A named person must review the work and decide whether there are sufficient grounds to act. A lawyer giving legal advice must verify the law and take responsibility for that advice. Choose the processing arrangement before introducing sensitive material. Establish who can access the information, where it goes and how it is retained, reused or disclosed. Systems controlled by the organisation may be appropriate for some work; an external service requires its own assessment. ## Records and protection Confidentiality and protection from disclosure depend on the applicable law, the material, its purpose and the people involved. A document does not acquire protection simply by passing through a legal team. Establish the relevant rules before deciding how work will be carried out, recorded and shared. Set rules for what to retain, where it will be held, who may access it and when it should be deleted, subject to any duty to preserve it. Assess confidentiality, privilege, professional secrecy and compulsory disclosure in the jurisdictions concerned. Include providers, support access, backups and cross-border transfers in that assessment, and obtain independent advice where needed. ## Controls - **Purpose:** Name the decision or action the work must support. - **Sources:** Link every material fact and statement of law to its source. - **Status:** Distinguish established facts, disputed accounts, calculations and open questions. - **Limits:** Identify unsupported conclusions, missing material and what the review excluded. - **Change:** Record what changed, when it changed and why. - **Ownership:** Keep the material and working instructions the organisation is entitled to retain and will need again. - **Responsibility:** Name the person who reviews the work and takes responsibility for its use. ## Transactions Compare each draft with the organisation’s agreed position: terms it accepts, departures it will consider and points requiring approval. Show the change, its practical effect and the choice it presents. Give the decision-maker a short account, with the clause and supporting reasoning close at hand. Each negotiation can improve that position. Keep the reasons for an exception and any concession obtained in return. When similar issues recur, the team can identify which clauses cause difficulty and where its own approach should change. ## Disputes Start with the evidence: contracts, correspondence and other relevant material. Identify what is missing or unreadable. Build a chronology that links each event to its source, then isolate the factual and legal questions that could change the outcome, the financial exposure or the next step. Keep the case assessment current as evidence arrives and deadlines approach. Show what is established, disputed or still unknown, together with the amounts at stake and the decisions due. The reader should be able to move directly from a conclusion to the reasoning and evidence behind it. ## Work on a schedule Some work benefits from a schedule: checking specified sources for legal changes, reviewing approaching deadlines or comparing new drafts with an approved position. Define the coverage, test the checks and assign responsibility for acting on the results. A missed run or failed check must be visible to that person. ## Outside judgment Outside counsel may be needed when a matter calls for specialist expertise, representation or an assessment at a distance from the organisation. A consequential dispute, investigation or exercise of public power may also justify independent challenge of the preferred course. Keep the history intelligible and the recurring work maintainable inside the organisation. Bring in outside counsel with a precise question and the sources needed to answer it. That preparation lets the lawyer spend more time on the issue and less on reconstructing what happened. ## A practical start 1. Choose one consequential task or matter with a clear decision. 2. Gather the sources and state the criteria for the decision. 3. Build a check that links each finding to evidence and identifies its limits. 4. Test it on earlier work whose relevant answers have been checked independently. 5. Give a named person ownership of the process and its review. An inventory of earlier legal work is a useful start. Identify material held internally and by outside counsel, and establish what the organisation is entitled to receive or retain. That will show which gaps can be filled and what information needs particular protection. Build before the next urgent matter. Use systems and licences the organisation can administer, and involve the people who will maintain the process. A useful handover leaves them able to run it, check its results and improve it. ## The point Legal work should leave the organisation able to explain an earlier decision and better prepared to make the next one. Tools, advice and internal processes should all serve that purpose. ## The author Jonas Hertner is an independent lawyer. He works on disputes, governance and AI for legal work. He built [OpenCaseLaw](https://opencaselaw.ch), an open source and open access legal research platform. He works in English, German and French. Contact Jonas Hertner, lawyer Asylstrasse 41, 8032 Zurich · Münsterplatz 17, 4051 Basel [team@jonashertner.com](mailto:team@jonashertner.com) jonashertner.com/pivot This is a general working note. It does not address the law of any jurisdiction or give legal advice. [Home](/) [Agents framework](/agents/) [Notes](/notes/) [Privacy](/#privacy)