Adrian Schiller, General Counsel at ID Logistics Germany, discusses why the real value of an in-house lawyer lies beyond identifying legal risk – in judging what actually matters, making the trade-offs clear and helping the business decide what to do.
Rather than one particular transaction or case, the most defining moment was probably realising that being a good in-house lawyer and being a good lawyer in general are two different things and require a very different mindset.
In an operational business like logistics, decisions often have to be made quickly, with incomplete information and very real commercial consequences. Saying that something carries legal risk is rarely enough. The business colleagues need to understand how significant that risk is, what can realistically be done about it, and whether there is a workable path forward.
That changed the way I approach legal advice. I became much more focused on prioritisation, proportionality and execution. I understand my role not as eliminating every conceivable legal risk, but as helping the organisation make informed decisions about which risks it can take, which ones it should mitigate, and where the line has to be drawn.
That shift from analysing risk to helping manage it has probably shaped me more as a GC than any individual matter I can think of.
I think the role will become less about being a company’s primary source of legal knowledge and much more about judgment.
AI and legal technology will definitely make legal information, first drafts and basic analysis available almost instantly. That is a major opportunity for legal departments, particularly for lean legal teams. But access to more legal information does not automatically produce better decision-making.
What will matter more and more is judgment: understanding the business, identifying what actually matters, challenging assumptions, weighing legal risk against commercial objectives and knowing when an issue genuinely requires escalation.
At the same time, I expect the complexity of the GC role to continue expanding. Compliance, data, technology, governance, geopolitical risk and strategic transactions increasingly overlap. The GC will have to connect these areas rather than treat them as separate legal disciplines.
In such an environment, the strongest GCs will not necessarily be those who know the law best. They will be those who can turn the increasing flood of information into clear decisions.
For me, innovation in legal is less about having the latest technology and more about constantly asking whether there is a more efficient way to do the work.
I lead a relatively lean legal function supporting a large and highly operational business, so scalability matters. Not every question should require a tailor-made legal analysis, and not every contract should start with a blank page.
I therefore try to distinguish between work that genuinely requires legal judgment and work that can be standardised, templated, automated or increasingly supported by AI. A bit like ready-to-wear clothing instead of having everything tailor-made, if you will. My objective is not simply to make Legal faster. It is to preserve our time and attention for the topics where legal judgment actually creates value.
I also encourage experimentation. If a new tool or process can remove repetitive work or improve the quality of our output, I would rather test it in practice than discuss its theoretical potential for a couple of months.
For a small legal team, agility is not optional. It is how you create leverage.
Judgment, credibility and the willingness to take a position.
A good lawyer can identify issues and explain the legal framework. An impactful GC goes one step further and helps the business decide what to do.
That requires understanding the commercial and operational context well enough to distinguish a theoretical risk from a material one. It also requires credibility with the business. People need to know that when I say “no”, there is a good reason – and equally, that I will work hard to find a viable route to “yes” where one exists.
I also think impactful GCs are comfortable taking ownership of their advice. Senior management rarely needs another ten-page memo covering all conceivable interpretations. They need someone who explains the uncertainty, identifies the trade-offs and still makes a recommendation.
You do not create influence by having an opinion on everything. You create it by being trusted when it matters.
