A fintech CEO approaches a lawyer with a straightforward question: “We want to launch a new product in two months. Can we do it, and what risks should we consider?”
A few days later, the CEO receives a fifteen-page legal opinion. The document contains references to legislation, regulatory requirements, exceptions, and potential penalties. Everything looks professional. There is just one problem: after reading it, the CEO still doesn’t know whether the launch is realistic, what needs to change, or how long the preparation will take.
The lawyer has completed the legal analysis but hasn’t helped the client make a decision.
This happens even with experienced professionals. Deep regulatory knowledge, years of practice, and an ability to identify legal risks do not automatically translate into an understanding of why the client sought legal advice in the first place.
When the law overshadows the business objective
Lawyers are trained to identify risks. Their professional thinking revolves around legal obligations, restrictions, liability, and potential consequences. This mindset is essential, but sometimes it becomes so dominant that the client’s business objective gets lost.
Consider a company planning to enter a new market. Its lawyer immediately begins researching corporate legislation, licensing requirements, and tax regulations. Yet no one has asked how the company plans to generate revenue, who its customers are, which payment channels it will use, or when it expects to launch.
Without this information, even an accurate legal analysis may have limited practical value.
The problem becomes particularly visible in FinTech, Web3, iGaming, and other regulated industries, where legal decisions directly affect product development, operational processes, costs, and time to market.
Clients rarely approach a lawyer simply because they want to understand legislation. Behind most legal questions is a business objective: launching a company, closing a transaction, attracting investment, or restructuring an existing operation.
A strong lawyer starts with that objective. They seek context, ask relevant questions, and only then determine which legal provisions actually matter.
This doesn’t mean commercial interests should override legal requirements. The lawyer’s responsibility is to identify a viable path toward the business objective while respecting mandatory legal boundaries.
Complex legal explanations don’t always lead to better decisions
In the legal profession, complexity is sometimes mistaken for expertise. The more legislative references, technical terminology, and qualifications a document contains, the more sophisticated it may appear.
For the client, however, the length of the document is rarely the main concern. What matters is understanding its implications for the business.
Consider two ways of explaining the same issue.
The first: “The proposed operating model requires further assessment of its compliance with applicable regulatory provisions, taking into account potential restrictions associated with the provision of the relevant services.”
The second: “Before launching, we need to establish whether your product requires regulatory authorisation. If it does, you cannot launch under the current model without obtaining it. We will assess the product’s classification and outline the available next steps.”
Both statements may reflect appropriate legal caution. But the second tells the client what needs to be clarified and why it matters.
Useful legal advice should answer at least three questions: what is permitted or prohibited, which risks remain, and what the company can do next.
Sometimes the right recommendation is to abandon a particular business model. Sometimes it is to restructure a transaction, postpone a launch, or conduct additional due diligence.
The point is that the client should understand the reasoning behind the recommendation. Clear language doesn’t eliminate legal complexity. It makes that complexity manageable for the person responsible for making the decision.
How to test a lawyer’s ability to speak the language of business
When hiring lawyers, companies typically assess professional experience, knowledge of legislation, completed projects, and industry specialisation. Communication skills often receive a much more superficial assessment: the candidate sounds confident during the interview, so communication probably won’t be an issue.
But speaking fluent legal English is not the same as explaining complex regulatory matters to someone without a legal background.
In legal recruitment, this ability can be tested through a practical exercise.
Imagine a fintech company that wants to reduce customer onboarding from ten minutes to three. The product team proposes removing some verification steps to make the process faster. The lawyer must assess the proposal from an AML/KYC perspective and identify possible solutions.
Instead of asking the candidate to draft a conventional legal opinion, give them a different assignment: explain to the CEO in five minutes what the company could change, which controls must remain, and what additional information is necessary before making a final recommendation.
The exercise reveals far more than technical knowledge.
A strong candidate will first ask about the jurisdiction, business model, customer categories, and existing verification procedures. They won’t promise that onboarding can be shortened safely without reviewing the facts. But they also won’t automatically reject every proposed change.
Pay attention to how the candidate handles follow-up questions. Can they explain their position without hiding behind terminology? Can they distinguish mandatory legal requirements from the company’s internal policies? Do they suggest a practical next step when the available information is incomplete?
Another useful exercise is to ask the lawyer to turn a complex legal memo into a short email for senior management. The essential legal meaning must remain intact, but the message should provide a clear recommendation, identify the risks, and explain any conditions that need to be met.
These situations reveal the difference between knowing the law and being able to apply it to a real business problem.
Why clear communication is part of legal quality
Legal advice rarely remains between the lawyer and the CEO. Other teams often have to implement it: finance, compliance, sales, marketing, or product development.
When the explanation is unclear, each team may interpret the advice differently. Some employees might delay work because they fear violating regulations. Others may overlook restrictions that the lawyer assumed were obvious.
As a result, the company may lose time, spend unnecessary resources, or expose itself to risks that clearer communication could have prevented.
This is why legal quality cannot be measured solely by the accuracy of the underlying analysis. It also depends on whether the client understands the recommendation, recognises its limitations, and can communicate the necessary actions to the rest of the organisation.
This doesn’t mean lawyers should always agree with commercial teams. A competent lawyer must be able to say “no” when a proposed action violates the law. But they should also explain why, describe the consequences, and identify a lawful alternative where one exists.
Ultimately, clients need more than an expert who knows the answers to difficult legal questions. They need someone who can discuss a problem with them, explain the available options, and help them make an informed decision.
At Manimama Growth, this is one of the qualities we consider when evaluating legal candidates. Technical expertise remains essential, but recruitment should also reveal how a lawyer listens, asks questions, and communicates recommendations.
Because the real value of legal expertise is not measured by how complicated it sounds. It is measured by how effectively it helps the client solve the problem they came with.
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