During Mona Patel’s first year as general counsel at the Lance Armstrong Foundation in Austin, she cut the nonprofit’s legal costs by half, a feat she accomplished by handling corporate work herself, negotiating pro bono and reduced-rate contracts with outside counsel, and bringing on legal interns who work for free.
“I essentially did everything in-house that I could and only sent things out to outside counsel [that are] very specialized or very intensive,” says Patel, the first GC at the foundation, which also is known as Livestrong.
