Businesses can use legal resources to create significant positive value and advance strategy. However, the in-house legal function must be significantly transformed, in business interaction and focus, structure and staffing. Like most business transformations, creating a legal organization with a strategic focus starts at the top. Members of the legal organization must understand the critical elements and priorities of corporate strategy, and eventually have input into that strategy. General counsel should be a member of the leadership team that develops and debates the business’s strategic opportunities. That enables counsel’s understanding and identification of legal risks to the strategy, opportunities to minimize those risks, and opportunities created in the legal or regulatory environment that could be exploited.