--- title: "How to Present Legal Risk to Your Board" description: "Turn a legal memo into a one-slide board briefing on litigation risk, cost, and timing with Lazard’s Deputy GC, Addar Levi." canonical: "https://gc.ai/podcast/addar-levi" last_updated: "2026-11-12" --- # How to Present Legal Risk to Your Board > Turn a legal memo into a one-slide board briefing on litigation risk, cost, and timing with Lazard’s Deputy GC, Addar Levi. ## What Should Go on a Board Slide About Litigation Risk? Levi compares the general counsel to a fashion designer who takes the raw fabric of outside counsel’s advice and tailors it to fit the business decision. In this case, that meant showing the board what the lawsuit could cost along the way, even if the company ultimately won. Levi describes the slide she would have brought. She thought proceeding was probably the right call because the matter was tied to a core business initiative. - **State the recommendation.** Proceed with the initiative and prepare for the litigation it could trigger. - **Explain what could change the timeline.** If the case survives a motion to dismiss, plan for the next phase of litigation. If the court grants a preliminary injunction, identify what work would have to pause. - **Show what the company needs to plan for.** Give directors the budget and staffing implications and tell them when you’ll bring them an update. Levi wanted directors to understand the consequences before deciding, so they wouldn’t have to ask later, “Why didn’t the lawyers tell us?” Carry the decision, exposure, and budget assumptions into your [litigation status reports](https://gc.ai/solutions/litigation-and-disputes) so the board can see what changes as the case progresses. ## What Do Executives Mean When They Ask “Can We Do This?” Before you answer, ask what the executive needs to decide and when. They may be asking you to work out how to proceed, test a decision they’ve already made, or help them plan for what could go wrong. Levi listens for which answer the room needs. > Sometimes they’re asking you what’s gonna go wrong here. Sometimes they’re just asking you, can you tell me I’m right? Ziniti recalls getting the same question from three people at Amazon about a product’s accessibility compliance date. The date was easy to provide, but what the team needed was a plan for what to do if they missed it. Levi also checks whether the deadline is firm. If the answer needs more time, the legal lead can manage expectations with stakeholders. Before you brief the board, check whether the company’s appetite for that risk has changed. [David Schellhase](https://gc.ai/podcast/david-schellhase), former general counsel at Salesforce, Groupon, and Slack, calls this “always be calibrating.” ## How Do You Train Lawyers to Review AI-Generated Drafts? Have the lawyer read the underlying authority and work through how it applies to the facts. Levi draws on advice she got from law professor Jack Goldsmith to read the statute itself. The lawyer needs enough command of the subject to see what the draft left out and explain why it matters. > Now you get this first draft and it’s appealing, right? It has the headers, it looks really compelling. On a litigation assignment, ask the reviewer to show which authority supports the conclusion, where the facts are disputed, and which finding would change the advice. [Diane Honda](https://gc.ai/podcast/diane-honda), then chief administrative officer and general counsel at Redis, describes how the company let teams try AI tools subject to a review for privacy and confidentiality. ## What Did Treasury Weigh When Silicon Valley Bank Failed? Levi describes how Treasury weighed protecting depositors and containing the risk to other banks against the possibility of encouraging institutions to take bigger risks in the future. She was a deputy general counsel at Treasury at the time. The FDIC moved Silicon Valley Bank’s deposits to a bridge bank so customers could access their funds. It announced the deal with First Citizens on March 26, 2023. ## How Does Delegation Change When the Legal Team Gets Bigger? Set priorities that let lawyers make decisions within their areas, and decide which developments need to reach you. Levi describes moving from a close-knit team of about ten attorneys to a Treasury legal department of roughly 2,000, including a large contingent of tax lawyers. At Treasury, she had to spend more time setting goals and making sure information reached the right people. She also had to be deliberate about which issues needed her attention personally and how much time to give each one. > When you have a team that’s 2,000 attorneys, you can’t be a micromanager. ## What Does Government Work Teach Lawyers About Making Hard Calls? Government work taught Levi to make hard calls quickly with incomplete information. When a decision can’t wait, she helps the client choose among the available options and explain the tradeoffs. Levi brings that experience to Lazard, where the business can also need an answer before every fact is known. When you’re preparing the next board packet, explore how GC AI helps teams turn company records into [board and meeting materials](https://gc.ai/solutions/governance). Build your team’s AI skills with [GC AI’s attorney-led classes](https://gc.ai/learn-ai). Learn how AI responds to your instructions, how to write prompts for tasks like drafting and research, and how to check the output before you rely on it. ## Related Episodes - David Schellhase (Ballistic Ventures), Diane Honda