Beth Freemal serves small to mid-sized private and family-owned businesses and high net worth individuals as a fractional general counsel and trusted advisor. She partners with leadership teams to protect assets, support succession planning, and align legal strategy with business goals. With over 20 years of experience, she brings a practical, business-first approach grounded in in-house leadership and complex transactions. Beth advises on governance, entity structuring, employment, vendor management, and contracts, creating guardrails that enable confident action. Known for her collaborative style and clear guidance, she helps clients identify risks, make informed decisions, preserve value, and drive long-term, sustainable growth.
Recently, in an exclusive interview with CIO Magazine, Beth shared insights into what fuels her work with private and family-owned businesses. She urged business leaders to rethink legal risk in the AI era not as something to avoid but to actively manage, noting that generative AI makes risk more visible yet fragmented across departments, so judgment and context remain irreplaceable for translating options into action. Looking ahead, she outlined three skills that will separate trusted advisors from traditional vendors: judgment under ambiguity, building context over time, and translating risk into executable choices that drive confidence. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.
Hi Beth. Helping businesses grow profitably and sustainably is your charge. What part of that work gives you the most energy because you see legacy and livelihood change in real time?
What gives me the most energy is watching leadership teams move from hesitation to confidence.
There’s a moment usually after we’ve clarified decision authority, cleaned up governance, and given managers a practical playbook to handle people and contract issues when everything starts to move faster. Leaders stop second‑guessing themselves.
That’s when you see real impact—not just on the business, but on people’s livelihoods and legacy. The company becomes more stable, more credible, and more valuable. And the leadership team feels it immediately.
You advise companies where AI is already in contracts, HR, and ops. How should business leaders rethink “legal risk” when every department has a generative AI co-pilot?
First, Leaders need to shift from thinking about legal risk as something to avoid, to something that needs to be actively managed and translated into opportunity.
AI will make it easier to identify issues and generate options. But it also creates a false sense of clarity. Surfacing risk is not the same as understanding which risks matter for this business, in this moment.
With AI embedded across contracts, HR, and operations, legal risk becomes more visible, but also more fragmented. Every department now has inputs, but no one is stitching it together.
That’s where the role of a trusted advisor becomes even more important. Someone still has to say: Here are your options, here’s the upside and downside, and here’s what I recommend given your goals. AI can accelerate the work. It can’t replace that judgment.
Legacy is built deal by deal. What skills will separate trusted business advisors from traditional legal vendors in the next decade?
Three skills will separate advisors from vendors:
- Judgment under ambiguity
The ability to guide decisions when the answer isn’t obvious. A situation when law, risk, and business objectives are all pulling in different directions.
- Context building over time
Trusted advisors understand how the company makes money, where leadership is comfortable taking risk, and what actually matters. That context is what allows consistent, high‑quality decisions.
- Translating risk into action
Not identifying issues, but helping leaders move forward. Clear options, clear tradeoffs, and a recommendation.
The future isn’t about who can produce the best work product.
It’s about who helps businesses decide and execute with confidence.
Servant leaders carry anchors that keep them grounded. Is there a book, case study, or piece of legislation on your desk that reminds you why law must serve people first?
One anchor I come back to is Traction by Gino Wickman, especially the idea of “getting the right people in the right seats.” It is a simple, clear reminder that structure and systems should support people and not the other way around.
That ties to how I think about the law. At its core, the law exists to serve the business. In practice, that means remembering that every “issue” is tied to real people, the owners building something meaningful, managers trying to do the right thing, and employees whose livelihoods are impacted.
When done well, legal structure creates clarity and stability. It removes friction and helps people move forward.
The mindset of law as a tool that enables people, not constrains them keeps me grounded. It reinforces my servant leadership mindset: the goal isn’t authority or control, but supporting and guiding others to do their best work and to achieve better outcomes.
If you could give every outside counsel one question to ask before giving advice, what would it be?
“What outcome do you want to achieve?”
Without that, advice tends to be technically correct but practically misaligned.
That question forces clarity around priorities: speed vs. certainty, revenue vs. protection, flexibility vs. control. Once that’s clear, the legal analysis becomes much more useful.
You talk about risk appetite, not just risk avoidance. What is one principle you refuse to compromise on, even when a client’s growth goals get aggressive?
No matter how aggressive the growth strategy, I won’t compromise on ensuring decisions are made transparently, by the right people, and in a way that can be stood behind with confidence. Acting ethically means decisions are responsible, documented, and defensible.
Organizations can and should take smart, calculated risks. But those risks must align with clear authority, sound judgment, and a willingness to be accountable for outcomes. When decision-making is vague or diffused, it creates confusion, erodes trust, and increases the likelihood of missteps.
Sustainable growth depends on principled leadership where doing the right thing is as important as moving quickly.
Listening is core to customization. What advice do you give GCs on co-creating solutions with leadership when founders feel the law slows them down?
Start by acknowledging the frustration. They are not wrong!
From leadership’s perspective, the law often shows up late, slows things down, and creates uncertainty. If that’s their experience, you have to meet them there first.
Then shift the conversation from “risk avoidance” to “getting to yes.”
And that starts with the same question: What outcome are you trying to achieve?
Once you’re aligned on that, the conversation changes.
Instead of saying “we can’t,” the conversation evolves to:
- Here are your options
- Here’s what each one gets you
- Here’s the risk
- Here’s what I recommend given your goals
And most importantly establish repeatable systems. When leadership sees that governance, contracts, and HR processes can actually help them move faster the relationship changes.
That’s when you stop being seen as a gatekeeper and start being trusted as a partner.
Of course, knowing “What outcome do you want to achieve?” is paramount to “getting to yes.”