While a company’s compliance department focuses on assessing and measuring risks and then testing the controls to manage them, the legal department is on the front end to define what those risks are—making the legal department the main adviser to the business.

That was the view of panelists at a recent Leaders of Legal webinar titled “The GC as Risk Advisor.” The panel included Stefanie Straub, general counsel of Mars Inc., Harvey Anderson, chief legal officer of HP Inc., Ann Kappler, general counsel of Prudential Financial, and Susan Hackett, CEO of Legal Executive Leadership.