Today’s feature post (Post 175) is a groundbreaking case study of how to create a modern policy management system, from identification of need to design to content to successful implementation.  It comes to us from a multidisciplinary team inside the legal department of VillageMD, a high-growth healthcare and technology company based in Chicago.

Many readers will no doubt enjoy the case study’s breezy writing and beautiful graphics.  But to my mind, the biggest takeaway is how a multidisciplinary team can leapfrog over traditional lawyer approaches to problem-solving.  Indeed, in agreeing to publish this case study, General Counsel Wendy Rubas acknowledges that she’s revealing her secret weapon, which is a legal operations team staffed by Northwestern Masters of Science in Law (MSL) grads.  So far, Rubas has hired three Northwestern MSLs, including the lead author of today’s case study, Arqam Khan. And no surprise, Rubas plans to hire more.

In our pre-publication conference call, Rubas told me that the MSLs have fully opened her eyes to the power of different and complementary skill sets within a legal department. Quoting Rubas:

The Northwestern MSLs have a solid grounding in law, so I don’t have to do much translation for them.  Yet, because of their diverse STEM backgrounds, they bring outstanding technical skills to the table, including comfort with data, process, and technology.  Indeed, now I know that this composition of talent is the way to get truly remarkable results from your legal team.

Because she’s all-in on the multidisciplinary approach, Rubas’s team includes Morgan Logan, a graphic designer who helps use pictures rather than words to keep VillageMD’s 1,800 employees engaged and informed on the company’s legal and business policies.

Many thanks to Wendy Rubas and her team for gifting the legal ecosystem with a roadmap for modern policy management system.

In addition, a special shoutout to Leslie Oster, NWU Law’s Director of the MSL Program, and Dean Emeritus (and Legal Evolution contributor) Dan Rodriguez, who launched the MSL program on the theory that it would one day prove to be a positive disruption for the legal profession. See Post 077 (MSL program described as a “mission-disruptive innovation” because it creates legal professionals who can respond to “new sets of problems … which do not require the expensive (and perhaps more narrow) work of a traditional lawyer”).