Legal Lightbulbs

Lawyer bashing: Do we deserve it? 💡 In this bold solo episode of the Legal Light Bulbs podcast, Verity White tackles a topic that every lawyer has encountered but few are willing to discuss, lawyer bashing. Drawing from her experience at a recent conference and years of working with in-house legal teams, Verity dives into the criticism often directed at lawyers and asks the big question: Is it ju...

In this episode of the Legal Light Bulbs podcast, host Verity White welcomes Deb Hook, head of legal operations at the University of Sydney, to discuss the groundbreaking 'Fast Track Contracts' program. They delve into how the program transforms the traditionally slow, complex contracting processes in universities by simplifying and automating the bottom 20% of high-v...

Building Networks and Side Hustles as an In-House Lawyer 🤝✨ In this episode of Legal Light Bulbs, the host chats with Theo Kapidistrias about the importance of building networks beyond the workplace for in-house lawyers. They explore how hobbies, communities, and side projects can help lawyers thrive and increase their influence. Theo emphasises the value of connecting with peers through profess...

Ready to flex your social skills and level up your networking game? 🤝✨ Join Verity White, Legal Director at Checklist Legal, in this insightful solo episode of the Legal Light Bulbs podcast. Verity shares her learnings from attending three legal conferences in just four weeks, offering practical advice on how to make meaningful connections, avoid common presentation pitfalls, and maximise your n...

Ready to supercharge your small legal team’s strategy and unlock your full potential? ️✨ In this insightful episode of Legal Lightbulbs, Verity White sits down with the incredible Bec Taube, former General Counsel at Oxfam Australia and soon-to-be legal leader at Deakin University. Together, they dive into the transformative power of strategy days for small legal teams a...

"Ready to stop avoiding the numbers and harness metrics to elevate your legal team's performance?” In this solo episode of Legal Lightbulbs, Verity White shares her personal journey with metrics and how they’ve become a game-changer for legal professionals looking to demonstrate value, drive efficiency, and align with business goals. You’ll uncover: ✅ Why metrics are essential f...

"Want to master the art of follow-up emails and keep your projects on track? 📨✨ In this solo episode of Legal Lightbulbs , Verity White dives into the power of the humble after-meeting email, a simple yet mighty tool to improve productivity, align teams, and demonstrate professionalism. You’ll uncover: ✅ Why after-meeting emails are essential for lawyers and in-house teams. ✅ How to stru...

Do you find yourself struggling to stay composed in high-pressure legal scenarios? 💡⚖️ In this exciting episode of Legal Lightbulbs, Verity White chats with shipping law expert Alison Cusack, diving into the unique challenges faced by small in-house legal teams managing global trade, tariffs, and contracts. You’ll discover: ✅ The art of legal triage: tackling urgent deadlines without losin...

Want to transform meetings from a dreaded obligation into energising, impactful sessions? In this solo episode of Legal Lightbulbs, Verity White dives into the art of designing productive meetings that leave you and your team aligned, energised, and ready to tackle the next steps. Verity shares her personal journey from corporate in-house legal teams to running Checklist Legal, where she mastered...

What does it really take to go from solo legal counsel to Head of Legal at a fast-growing B Corp? In this episode of Legal Lightbulbs, we chat with Kate Sherburn, Head Legal Beagle at Who Gives a Crap, about building confidence, leading with purpose, and scaling a legal function with strategy and values. Kate shares the lessons she’s learned from private practice to in-house, how she used te...

Host Verity White discusses strategies for small in-house legal teams to optimise their legal operations with guest Katrina Gowans, co-chair of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) chapter in Australia.  Katrina explains the concept of legal operations, emphasising it as the 'business of law' and highlights common mistakes such as over-relying on technology solutions. The conversa...

Welcome to Legal Lightbulbs – the podcast for in-house legal professionals making a big impact with a small team. In this trailer, your host Verity White…  the lucky lawyer who gets to talk to some of the sharpest minds in the inhouse legal world…. shares what the show is all about, who it’s for, and what you can expect when you listen in! If you're a sole counsel or...

In this special episode, we go the Sydney 2018 Legal Innovation and Tech Fest where Verity Presented on Legal Intrapreneur Basics. We learn You can listen and follow along with the presentation pack and other resources from the presentation here at: https://www.checklistlegal.com/legaltechfest This presentation covered a range of ideas on moving from innovation idea, to testing to roll out includi...

This is the episode that puts together all the previous episodes and ideas into one full process overview… · We run through the four big Secrets of Productive Contracts · We step through six steps of how to make a Reverse Sandwich Contract™ which makes use of those four contract secrets In Episode 01 (Productive Contracts: Reverse Sandwich Contracts), we met our producti...

This episode of the Checklist Legal Podcast covers: • How to create a mind map and my favourite application for creating mind maps • How to create Swimlane process maps for more complicated contracts with lots of moving parts Head to the website https://www.checklistlegal.com/podcast and click on episode 10 for: • an example mind map for a basic contract process, from application fo...

Episode 09: Triple O Productivity for your contract process - How to make your contracting process more productive On this episode, we do a ‘why’ oveview of contract process mapping. We lay out the broad way to use Triple O Prodcutivity™ to improve your contract process productivity. The next episode delves deeper into the ‘how’ of contract process mapping. • Why...

On this episode of the Checklist Legal Podcast: • Scientific proof clients hate legalese • Why lawyers should hate legalese too • Why (as Prof Joe Kimble says) the law is no serious obstacle to writing clearly and plainly • How you can sound smarter (hint: use plain language) • 3 legalese words to banish from your contracts. Key Takeaways Steer clear of legalese. Do the wo...

On this episode, we look at the SLAPP test. Key tactics we can use to improve the productivity of the contract document. We'll cover: • Academic studies showing the effectiveness of visual contract elements • The picture superiority effect • Why easy to read is easy to like • Contract formatting tips The SLAPP test: http://bit.ly/CLL_SLAPP <<< Key Takeaways >>&gt...

On this episode of the Checklist Legal Podcast, we are covering the Triple O Productivity way to approach your contract docucument. This means systematically looking at the document and: 1. Obliterating the things in our contract we don’t need, 2. Optimising the things in the contract we do need, and then identifying what in the contract we can 3. Outsource to others to make document writing...

In this episode of the Checklist Legal podcast: • Why you need to systematise your productivity hacking • An overview of the Triple O productivity system • How this productivity system applies to contract documents & contract processes • 3 key tactics to tick off before you start ripping into documents **Key Takeaways** • If you haven’t already, read 'Getting Thi...

Today’s show is all about the 'Delegate like Beyoncé' checklist **Key Takeaways** > You can download a PDF copy of the 'Delegate like Beyoncé' list from https://www.checklistlegal.com/resources > Nozbe checklist: https://nozbe.how/Hnm7x **Actionable Challenge** Download the 'Delegate like Beyoncé' checklist. Think of a task that you really dislike doing at work or...

In this episode of the Checklist Legal Podcast… • Why minions is not a dirty word • We look at the different types of minions available to you • Examples of some basic Robot Minions to try • Tactics for approaching minions • What to do if you have no minions KEY TAKEAWAYS • It's great to delegate! • Minions come in all shapes, sizes, and seniority levels &...

This episode covers… • What a contract is • Who is a contract for? Who is the user of a contract? • Why your ordinary lawyering skills are not enough anymore and why you need an extraordinary skill set • What does it mean to think digitally? • How does digital thinking apply to building a contract KEY TAKEAWAYS • We need to stop seeing a contract as a bit of pa...

This is the intro podcast where I give you an overview of what this podcast is about and you decide whether you like my voice and whether you want to keep listening. What’s coming up on the podcast? Over the next few weeks we will cover lots of tips and tricks I've used to make contracts more productive and easier to understand and faster to action. • Why a contract is not just a bit of...

What if lawyers wrote beautiful contracts that everyone could read, understand, and use? What if these contracts helped make negotiation easier and reduced commercial disputes? There is a fun and easy way to structure a contract so you get all the legal power of a traditional contract with ridiculous amounts of productivity for everyone that touches the contract (including lawyers, clients and cus...