If you’re in-house, overwhelmed, and wondering if there’s a smarter way to support the business without burning out, make time for Tanisha Minev.
In a recent episode of Notes to My (Legal) Self, Tanisha — in-house legal counsel and co-author of “Legal Operations in the Age of AI and Data” — offers one of the most grounded, actionable perspectives on legal operations you’ll hear this year. Her advice is rooted in lived experience, not theory, and it’s especially timely for teams navigating fast growth, high expectations, and increasing pressure to do more with less.
Watch the full interview here:
Legal Ops Isn’t A Product. It’s A Mindset.
Tanisha’s entry into legal ops wasn’t planned. Early in her career, she kept running into the same inefficiencies, especially around routine contracts like NDAs and MSAs. Without waiting for new headcount or technology, she started simplifying and standardizing what she could.
At Yoco, legal requests were flying in through email, Slack, and hallway conversations. Her solution? A lightweight intake system using tools the business already used. No expensive platform. No consultants. Just clarity and intentional process design.
This theme runs throughout her approach: fix what’s broken before scaling. Legal operations isn’t about buying tech — it’s about solving real problems, sustainably.
Contracts Might Be Slowing You Down, More Than You Think
One of Tanisha’s sharpest insights: your contracts may be the most expensive part of your sales cycle — and not because of outside counsel bills.
She points to the hidden cost of inefficient contract workflows. When teams re-review the same NDAs or DPAs without clear fallback positions or templated guidance, it leads to bottlenecks, decision fatigue, and sales delays. The solution isn’t just automation — it’s standardization and visibility.
Tanisha warns against jumping into CLM or workflow automation too early. Without a solid baseline — data about deal types, turnaround times, and friction points — you risk optimizing noise instead of solving the real issues.
You Don’t Need A CLM. You Need Clarity.
The drive to “fix” contracts often leads teams to invest in software before they’ve defined the problem. Tanisha advocates for a different approach: start by tracking what matters most. What kinds of contracts are coming in? What’s slowing down review? What’s negotiable — and what isn’t?
By building this internal map, teams can identify where to standardize, when to escalate, and how to support the business with fewer bottlenecks.
Clarity Builds Trust
Tanisha doesn’t just talk about efficiency; she ties it directly to trust. When legal is overwhelmed, it’s hard to be proactive. But when the team operates with clarity — about intake, about playbooks, about fallback terms — it builds confidence across the business.
This doesn’t require a transformation. Often, it starts with small changes: clarifying an NDA playbook, publishing standard terms, or making a contract template self-service. These steps compound over time, allowing legal to focus on higher-impact work.
Start Small, Improve Something
Tanisha closes the episode with a simple challenge: “Pick one thing and make it better.”
Whether it’s intake, contracts, or collaboration with Sales, the path to a smarter legal function isn’t necessarily more tech — it’s more intention.
Her insights are a valuable reminder: legal operations isn’t about tools. It’s about trust, clarity, and continuous improvement.
Olga V. Mack is the CEO of TermScout, an AI-powered contract certification platform that accelerates revenue and eliminates friction by certifying contracts as fair, balanced, and market-ready. A Fellow at CodeX, The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, and the Generative AI Editor at law.MIT, she is a visionary executive reshaping how we law—how legal systems are built, experienced, and trusted. Olga teaches at Berkeley Law, lectures widely, and advises companies of all sizes, as well as boards and institutions. An award-winning general counsel turned builder, she also leads early-stage ventures including Virtual Gabby (Better Parenting Plan), Product Law Hub, ESI Flow, and Notes to My (Legal) Self, each rethinking the practice and business of law through technology, data, and human-centered design. She has authored The Rise of Product Lawyers, Legal Operations in the Age of AI and Data, Blockchain Value, and Get on Board, with Visual IQ for Lawyers (ABA) forthcoming. Her work reimagines people’s relationship with law—making it more accessible, inclusive, data-driven, and aligned with how the world actually works. Follow her on LinkedIn and X @olgavmack.
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