How to Handle:
“Legal needs to review this”
The prospect is indicating that your agreement, data practices, or solution must pass legal scrutiny before they can proceed. This is common in regulated industries and is usually a legitimate step, not an objection to overcome.
Why Prospects Say This
Organizations involve legal to protect against liability, ensure regulatory compliance, and manage risk. In industries like healthcare, financial services, and government, legal review is mandatory, not optional. Your goal is to facilitate this process, not fight it.
Best Responses
The Proactive Documentation
“Completely understand—legal review is standard for decisions like this. To speed things up, I can send over our standard MSA, security documentation, and compliance certifications. What specific areas do you think your legal team will focus on?”
Why It Works
Shows you're prepared and experienced. Gets the documents flowing immediately.
Best For
Regulated industries, enterprise customers with formal procurement
The Legal-to-Legal Offer
“Our legal team is very familiar with these reviews and happy to work directly with yours. Would it be helpful if I connected our legal counsel with your team? That often speeds things up compared to going back and forth through us.”
Why It Works
Removes you as a bottleneck. Legal teams often move faster when talking directly.
Best For
Complex contracts, heavily negotiated terms, enterprise deals
The Timeline Setter
“Legal reviews can sometimes take a while. How long does this process typically take at your organization? And is there anything I can do to help expedite it?”
Why It Works
Sets realistic expectations and identifies potential acceleration points.
Best For
Deals with hard deadlines, time-sensitive implementations
The Redline Ready
“Happy to facilitate that process. Do you want me to send a clean version or would you prefer a redline-ready Word document so your legal team can make tracked changes? We're pretty flexible on most standard terms.”
Why It Works
Shows you're easy to work with and experienced with negotiations.
Best For
Customers who typically negotiate terms, mid-market and enterprise deals
Do's and Don'ts
Do This
- Have your standard agreements, security documentation, and compliance certs ready to go
- Offer legal-to-legal conversations to speed up the process
- Ask what specific concerns legal typically focuses on
- Provide a redline-ready document if they want to negotiate
- Set clear timelines and follow up regularly on progress
Don't Do This
- Act frustrated or try to skip the legal review
- Promise terms you can't deliver
- Let the deal go dark during legal review
- Assume legal review means they're not interested
- Wait passively for legal to finish—stay engaged
Follow-up Questions to Ask
“What specific areas does your legal team typically focus on?”
“How long does legal review usually take for purchases like this?”
“Would it help to connect our legal teams directly?”
“Are there any deal-breaker terms I should know about upfront?”
“What documentation would help speed up the review?”
Industry-Specific Variations
“We need to review this for HIPAA compliance.”
“Absolutely, HIPAA compliance is critical. I'll send over our BAA template, SOC 2 report, and HIPAA compliance documentation. We're fully compliant and have signed BAAs with [similar healthcare customers]. What else would your compliance team need to see?”
“Our compliance team needs to review all vendor agreements.”
“Completely understand—we work with several financial services clients and are familiar with the requirements. I'll send our standard compliance package including SOC 2, security questionnaire, and regulatory documentation. Who should I coordinate with on the compliance review?”
“This needs to go through our procurement and legal review.”
“We're experienced with government procurement processes and have our contract vehicles and certifications ready. I'll send our GSA schedule information, past performance references, and standard terms. What's the best way to work with your procurement office?”
Pro Tips
- Have a 'legal starter pack' ready: MSA, DPA, security documentation, compliance certs. Send it immediately when legal review comes up.
- Build relationships with legal teams over time. Once they've approved you once, future deals move faster.
- Ask specifically about deal-breaker terms upfront. Don't waste weeks negotiating only to hit an unmovable issue.
- Create a tracker for legal review milestones: docs sent, first review complete, redlines received, final negotiation, signature. Follow up on each stage.
- If legal is slow, gentle pressure from the business side (your champion) is more effective than pushing from the vendor side.
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