How Ferrero added a lawyer without adding headcount

Ferrero Canada's legal function ran on one person: Marisa. Headcount for a second lawyer wasn't in the cards — a familiar constraint for lean in-house teams stretched across a growing business.

Rather than let the gap sit, Marisa looked at where budget was going unused. External counsel spend that wasn’t being deployed was redirected to bring in dedicated in-house support three days a week, without waiting for a new role to be approved.

It was Marisa’s first time working with Goodlawyer. She wasn’t sure what to expect going in. She came out, in her words, “just blown away.”

Goodlawyer matched her with Jackie, a fractional in-house lawyer whose background closely mirrored Marisa's own.

That overlap mattered. Rather than spending weeks explaining the business from scratch, Jackie stepped directly into live work. Marisa shadowed the first couple of calls alongside her — standard practice for any handoff — and quickly saw that the shadowing wasn't necessary.

The bigger surprise was how Jackie's addition helped Marisa build better processes.

As the sole lawyer on the team for years, Marisa had never had anyone in a position to question how she did things. That changed the moment Jackie joined.