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36 www.canadianlawyermag.com FEATURE TECHNOLOGY Legal departments at Xplornet, League, and Lightspeed support expansion strategies through M&A, integration, and organic growth THE TECHNOLOGY industry experienced tremendous growth during the pandemic as demand surged for tools to support the remote-working environment, such as videoconferencing, file-sharing and e-sig- nature tools, and cyber security platforms. As many businesses settle into a hybrid working environment, demand for tech- nology has not waned. Despite the recent downturn in share prices amid high infla- tion rates, legal departments at Canadian tech companies continue to support M&A opportunities, organic growth, and the inte- gration of new businesses. League Inc. – a technology-focused health company – continued to grow rapidly and was named one of Deloitte's Fast 50 companies in 2020. "Growing this fast can bring with it chal- lenging growing pains," says Muneeb Yusuf, general counsel at League. "When you are growing more than 100 percent a year, your company is a very different one in December than it was in January. It forces you to level up and adapt to change constantly." Planning for rapid growth is challenging, particularly with hiring, as it takes time to find great talent and to train them to be fully productive, says Yusuf. Although growth has not slowed since the company was founded in 2014, it has become more predictable, so the team can plan. Yusuf 's legal team supports the growth team at League in negotiating commercial transactions and working to close equity and debt transactions. "As you mature as a company, your appe- tite for risk also tempers, but you do not want to inhibit the growth and approach that made you successful in the first place," says Yusuf. As the company continues to grow, Yusuf wants his team to stay nimble, solution-ori- ented, and focused on business needs. "We want to be able to keep pace with the growth of the company without just adding more bodies to our team, so we're taking the time now to invest in the development of our legal processes and technology," says Yusuf. For example, the team is leveraging a service management platform to centralize contracting and other legal team requests. They also plan to leverage technology vendors to automate the signing and autho- rization policy enforcement. Yusuf says his team is differentiating itself from other legal departments in the tech space by focusing on legal ops. He believes this focus will drive considerable efficiencies in their work and free up time to collaborate with business teams to solve business chal- lenges and seize growth opportunities. After a period of intense M&A when the company first went public, the focus at Lightspeed HQ has more recently shifted to Technology companies seize new growth opportunities "A lot of the work has to go into making sure that, post-acquisition, the service being provided to the customer meets their expectations" Fabien Fourmanoit, Xplornet