Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors have become key drivers of corporate strategy and success. For many legal teams this has resulted in having to grapple with an ever-growing workload to manage risk, compliance and governance. From increased reporting requirements to staying ahead of changing regulations and the practical implications to consider.
So how can legal teams address these challenges effectively? We explore three ways in which legal teams can leverage flexible legal support to successfully support their organisation’s ESG strategy to both gain competitive advantage and safeguard their businesses mitigate potential risks.
#1 A commercial approach to ESG
To achieve an effective corporate ESG strategy that contributes to positive investor relations, growing revenues and attracting and retaining top talent in your organisation, it is critical that your business understands how to fulfil ESG reporting obligations without putting your company at reputational risk or giving away competitive advantage.
Here leveraging the expertise and experience of legal consultants that bring best practice and learnings from working across several organisations and City law firms can prove advantageous to legal teams.
Complementing your legal team’s in-depth knowledge and understanding of your own business and sector – legal consultants bring a fresh perspective of the pitfalls to avoid and insights from those organisations implementing effective ESG strategies.
At Obelisk, our pool of highly experienced, pre-vetted senior legal consultants are mostly City-trained with significant in-house experience at leading organisations. Able to hit the ground running, legal teams benefit from their ability to provide a robust and practical commercial approach.
#2 Build an agile, responsive legal team
Heighted investor awareness, alongside internal and external stakeholder expectations is expected to drive a sharp increase, both in scale and scope, of mandatory ESG corporate reporting requirements.
Yet, allocating resources to support corporate ESG initiatives such as due diligence or compliance reporting, can often compete with other legal priorities. This can be made more challenging with unpredictable peaks in workload, absences or unforeseen illness in the legal team.
Using legal consultants can act as an extension to a legal team when needed, providing the legal function on-demand flexibility to boost capacity, free up team members to work on strategic projects or support on delivering stand-alone projects quickly and efficiently.
Plus, when working with Obelisk, your legal team additionally benefits from time and cost savings as we manage recruitment, vetting and onboarding of legal consultants.
#3 Enhance ESG knowledge and skills
ESG regulations can be complex and fragmented, varying by jurisdiction and industry. Combined with ever-changing regulatory requirements, it can be challenging for legal teams to stay abreast of the latest developments and ensure your organisation’s ESG compliance while maintaining consistency and transparency.
Bringing in legal consultants with specialist ESG know-how to support on ESG-related projects or provide training and share their expertise, can help enhance your organisation and legal team’s knowledge and skills to effectively navigate complicated ESG reporting and compliance.
Why choose Obelisk as your flexible legal support partner?
As only the twelfth legal business in the UK to become a certified B Corporation, we remain committed to using our business as a force for good, and prioritising ethical business practices, transparency and legal accountability.
We’re proud to work with great companies to deliver tangible impact in advancing diversity in the legal profession: across our pre-vetted pool of legal consultants and paralegals, 65% of our legal consultants are women, 15% are returners (industry average1.5%) and 70% of roles are truly flexible – allowing exceptional talent that would otherwise be excluded, to keep working in the law.
Partner with Obelisk and benefit from:
Fast, flexible legal support
We offer agile and responsive legal support precisely when you need it, enabling your team to navigate challenges and seize opportunities promptly. Through our multi award-winning business model, our legal consultants can act as an extension of your team within a matter of days – or even hours.
Pre-vetted talent pool
Our extensive talent pool is hand-picked and comprises mostly of City-trained legal consultants with significant in-house experience and best-in-class paralegals with expertise across key commercial practice areas.
Tailored pricing
We offer bespoke pricing arrangements, including alternative fee arrangements and fixed fees, to suit your organisation’s needs and budget.
Quality matches you can trust
Leveraging our proprietary matching platform, we connect great businesses with outstanding legal consultants and best-in-class paralegals that hit the ground running and add immediate value to your legal team.
End-to-end support
We handle recruitment, onboarding and related administrative tasks, saving you time & resources. Plus, benefit from dedicated account management & built-in project management for larger projects or team placements.
“It’s imperative that my team can deliver strategic, risk savvy, customer-centric advice. Working with Obelisk means I know I can access extra expertise from lawyers with the same commercial outlook whenever we need to, helping us build the agility we need to support the future success of our business and our customers. Obelisk’s consultants have really set the bar when it comes to the attributes we look for in the people who support us.”
