Law for CEOs
They are ordinary obligations that nobody owned until they crystallised. Each briefing sets out what the risk is, where it actually lands in the business, and the questions a board should be asking about it — in a few minutes, not a few hours.
All briefings
Written for people who decide rather than people who implement: short, specific, and pointed at the decision.
Which legal exposures are most likely to become a board-level problem?
Not the exotic ones. The risks that reach the board are usually ordinary obligations that nobody owned until they crystallised.
We have a privacy policy. Why is that not the answer?
A policy is a description. What a regulator, a customer or a court engages with is whether the description is true - and whether you can show it.
Where do employment claims actually come from?
From process, classification and records - not usually from the merits of the underlying decision.
We negotiate price hard. What are we not negotiating?
Liability, termination and dispute resolution. These decide the outcome when a relationship fails, and they are usually accepted as boilerplate.
At what point does informal decision-making become a liability?
Earlier than most founders expect - usually at the first external investor, the first serious dispute, or the first regulator question.
How do we stop finding out about a change after it affects us?
By assigning ownership and going to the source. Most late discoveries are ownership failures, not information failures.
